General: Anyone here changed the rear springs before?

[stevo83]

Originally Posted by Daim

Volvo says not to compress the spring... The problem is probably not being able to the spring in the correct position to compress it.

Oh right! Fair enough. I'd of had the compressors on without thinking about it!

[voldo]

reckon you could get away with it using compressors, lol

[Daim]

Like said, the Volvo instructions say to use them at the front, but not at the rear...

[Jaff87]

the rears are a doddle.

1) shimmy under the car and undo the drop links through the bottom arms, on the straight pinn type, iirc you need a 16mm and a 15mm to undo them. the elbowed ones are 15mm with a 5mm hex counter hold iirc .when both are off push the anti-roll bar down out the way.
2)lift back end and put on axel stands.
3) spray the lower arm bolts, the bottom most bolt near the wheels with wd40
4) take off rear wheels
5) pick as side and use a trolley jack and raise the lower armthat side to take the load off the bolt
6) undo the 15mm lower arm bolt, will be really stiff so a breaker bar may be required. remove the bolt completely
7) slowly lower the jack, the spring will fall out, the rubber foot on the body may come off to it may stay in place, if the latter just jummy it out with a screw driver.
8) put the rubber foot onto the new spring and twist it onto the stops, put the new spring into the bottom arm spring seat and twist till the spring wont turn int he seat.
9)raist the jack guiding the spring into place in the body and keep going until the bottom arm slot back into the back of the hub. this may need to be forced as when the arm comes down it goes down and out towards the back of the car.
10) when the jack has loaded up the suspension again reinstall the bottom arm bolt, tighten it a fair bit, then raise the jack summore until the car lift just and no more off the axel stand that side. use a torque wrench and torquw the bolt to 115nm.
11) slowly release the jack, and repease 5)-10) on the other side.
12) reinstall the back wheels and tighten the nuts faitly tight.
13) lower the car off the axel stands.
14) torque wheel nuts to between 90 and 110nm (depending on what you read volvo list different torques, but personally i go for 110nm on the proper nuts, 90nm on the lockers.
15) shimmy back under the car and reinstall the drop links.
16) if you can recheck the bottomm arm bolts at 115nm, but if you fully took the weight previously then they should be ok.

Also get the tracking done, the rear toe is adjusted with the bolts on the other end of the lower arms (where it attaches to the body) unloading and reloading etc can knock them out.

you dont need compressors as the jack or in volvos instructions transmission tack compress the spring against the body.

Its dead easy you should be able to do the pair of them in little over an hour if things are siezed.

[Daim]

Fantastic description!

Now am just waiting for a set of springs (lent) to arrive, so I can remove mine, fit these, wait for mine to be sent back to me and then I'll have the lowered rear end again, what I have been waiting for!

I'll be removing, fitting, removing, fitting within something like 5 days

[Daim]

Just done it - boy is that an easy task! Can nearly do it without taking the wheels off! It is really simple... Took some pics and will be adding them in the course of the day

[Daim]

Changed them again - 45 mins and done!

AND my car looks better after than before!