Rear Suspension Assembly

Once the rear differential was mounted properly, we started on the rear axles and suspension. This consisted of installing the lower a-arms, axles, spindles, tying in the sway bar and attaching the brake lines. The upper a-arms came pre-installed with the car.

The process wasn't too eventful. We installed the lower a-arms with little fuss first, followed by the axles, then the spindles, then brake hoses.

A few notes:

• Move the sway bar up and out of the way - or attach it to the upper a-arm first thing. If you completely install the axles and the swaybar is pointed below the axle on the left side of the car, the swaybar won't be able to swing up into position.
• In order to tighten the rear-most lower ball joint on the rear spindle, the caliper must be removed.
• When installing the axles, reach into the differential and situate the c-clip in the center of the hole. This will go a long way towards ensuring there is little binding when installing the axles.
• If necessary, tap the end of the axle with a block of wood and mallet to fully seat it. See the pic at the end of this post to view how far in the axle should go.
• Be sure to align the cotter pin holes for each ball joint in a way that will allow you to insert the cotter pin once installed.
• Note that if fully inserted into the hub (without a wheel installed), the wheel bolts will hit the hub. This will cause the hub not to rotate fully, making you think that something has gone awry with the differential, causing at least one full night of sleeplessness.

Here is a pic of the rear end pretty much fully assembled. We'll put the gas tank back in next. Note the red bushings near the bottom of the frame. To the best of our knowledge, those are used for a live rear axle set up and are not utilized with an IRS setup.

We currently do not know to where the wire on the right of the picture connects. The other end is not connected to anything and is not labeled.