[Spridgets] Changing spring bushes and brake shoes...

[Lester]

Hello all,

just wanted to recount my tales from this last weekend, nothing for  
those who aren't nubes here..

I ended up replacing the rear spring bushes without incident, as told  
to do ealier, jack up one side of car, support just forward of the  
bots that secure the spring to the body, undo those bolts, the big U  
bolts and the eyebolt, spring fell out into my hand.  Go over to the  
cheapo press and press old bush out and press new one in.  Piece of  
cake.  The thought of splitting the springs apart and making them all  
pretty and new quickly went away as I could figure no way to undo the  
screws that hold the spring retainers on.  These are the sorta U bolts  
that have a screw going through a small diameter metal tube underneath  
the spring.. anyway those will need to be cut off and I didn't have  
the parts or the time so I applied grease to anywhere that I could see  
shiny metal.  Makes a WORLD of difference, all of the noise coming  
from the back is GONE!

Now to the brakes, maybe it's a little inside joke here or maybe youse  
guys have the MOWOG tool number 286997x that is used to remove those  
little brake shoe keeper springs but those thing kicked my butt.  I  
was at the shop until 11:30 and well over an hour was spent trying to  
remove those little things.  There must be a better way than what I  
did which was to release both brake springs, push shoes to the outside  
(closer to the middle of the car) and fiddle with those springs until  
they fell off.  Putting them on is a breaze..

Time spent removing rear springs, replacing bushes, greasing bits and  
re-installing		2.0 hours

Time spent removing those damn brake springs									1.0 hours

Time spent removing shoes and replacing										1.0 hours

.. but well worth it..

Lester