Remove the shock from its mounting on the l.c.a and compress it up out of the way. Assuming the torsion bar was fully unloaded and devoid of any tension it should have come out of the rear socket. If it has'nt, resist the temptation to apply grips to it and belt it, you'll damage the surface of the bar and a stress fracture could appear there and shatter the bar. A good time to install new bars anyway considering the low cost and the handling benefits. If your carefull you can install the nut onto the l.c.a shaft and give it a couple of raps with a soft copper or hide mallet, don't damage the threads on the shaft. When the arm comes free the bar will pop out easily, and then you can draw the arm and its shaft out of the K member, the strut rod will stay attached to the arm, I left it there all the time and it was'nt an issue, you can remove the old strut rod bushings now, one either side of the front of the rod attached to a thin metal sleeve. Now have a look at the lower arm and where the shaft is installed into it. The bushing is a rubber inner with a metal sleeve both inside and outside. This part is reasonable fun, you get to burn the rubber out with a blowtorch
, simply hold the flame to the middle of the bushing 'till it catches fire and wait while it burns itself out. You can easily pull out the shaft with inner metal sleeve attached and then get a pair of pliers and pull out the remains of the old bush, leaving the old outer metal sleeve still firmly inside the arm. Clean any debris out of the arm and the surface of the shaft and install your new poly bush, loads of silicone grease around all surfaces and the shaft will easily push back into the arm without much more effort than leaning on it.
Now you can fit the inside half of the strut rod poly bush to the end of the rod, greased thoroughly, and get ready to install the l.c.a c/w shaft back into the K member, guide the strut rod back in at the same time, install the shaft nut but don't fully tighten it yet, install the other half of the strut rod poly hush and plate and nut and tighten. Now you can re fit the torsion bars, make sure they go in the same side they came out of, they cannot be swapped over, they will fail if they are
but it doe'snt matter which end goes back in tho'. Take as much grase as you can hold and pack it into the hex receivers on the l.c,a and the chassis, slot the bars in from the back and fit the grease boots to them as they go thru' the chassis, jiggle the l.c.a up and down till you find the point at which they both line up and push the bars all the way home, don't forget clips.
Now you can move on to the upper control arm, or u.c.a. Look in the engine bay to find the other end of the special bolts which hold these in place and loosen them off and remove them, see first pic. The u.c.a will come out now but will need a good tug due to the years of rust and dirt. The next job is to remove the old bushes and fit the new ones, here you'll either need a special tool, see Daves bit on this post where he shows the tool he made up,........... or a mate with a press, I got one ion my garage
, made the job super easy, see second pic. Clean the u.c.a and refit it to the car, reattach the bolts, don't worry about the position of the bolts and washers yet, Dave tells us the basic position for them, good job we got him eh
Now you can attach the upper balljoint and tighten the nut, install the caliper and shock and you are nearly done. Before you wind some tension into the torsion bars grease the top of the adjusting bolt and the socket where it fits into the torsion bar lever, I've got a really good scan of an article on torsion bar installation that shows this at work that I'll post up this week. Drop the car onto its wheels and load the suspension , set the ride height to about 24", floor to top of wheel arch, to start with and now fully tighten the l.c.a shaft nut and check everything else for tightness, all the torque settings are in the workshop manual. You'll have to visit a garage with a set of suspension geometry gauges to get it all set spot on, wheel alignement, camber and caster. It all sounds like a lot of work but in reality its not, I had a couple of major headaches but even then it was'nt too bad, and you know everyone on here will help you