has anyone done, or know of, a rear beam removal guide? im toying with the idea to do a proper refurb, was just looking for some reading material to see whats involved and whether its likely i can do it. thanks in advance.

 

piss easy mate i've done it on my mk1 2l zetec (rear discs)

1. disconnect abs sensors, brake flexi hoses and handbrake cables including the little bolts securing them to the trailing arms.
2. remove shocks. little nut at top, 13 or 15mm iirc bolt on the bottom
3. remove the 4 bolts tucked under the body honding the big bush end of the trailing arms.
4. now your left with the 4 or 6 (think its 6) subframe bolts. remove them and the whole rear suspension drops out, subframe and all.

haynes manual is usefull if you get stuck.

the tricky bit is removing all the suspension arms. they often need cutting out (carefully if you want to retain the arms for fitting poly bushes) as the bolts sieze into the bushes. consiquently when you undo the bolt you end up tearing the bush apart.

if any work ever needs doing on the rear suspension the easiest way of doing it is to drop the whole lot as it makes FAR better access if you need to carefully cut bolts etc.

 

hmm, sounds a bit above me. how do you jack up when doing this? because i normally put axel stands on the rear beam.

 

i used to do that, now i just jack up the whole back end in one go with one jack under the centre of the subframe. then put the axle stands under the sills.

its not hard at all to get it off. just depends on how much of a strip down you intend to do. if you strip the whole thing i'd budget new poly bushes. ford bushes are dear and only come already pressed into the arms. for instance the lower spring cup arms are Ł125 each from ford.

 

ive tried axel stands on the sills before and bent the sills - not happy about that!!

basically im thinking about what i might like to do with the car over the course of the next year. after originally saying i wouldnt im going to modify it now. not heavily, just the exhaust and coilover route. ive seen that the exhaust is tricky to get off and id quite like to do a full refurb on the rear beam - so thats 2 birds with 1 stone. if im taking the beam apart then id do the bushes at the same time, 3 birds. and put it all back together with new coilovers, 4 birds.

things is though, i dont want to be bodging things and certainly dont want to be breaking, cutting or snapping things to do it. if its just nuts and bolts i could probably manage but if its more complicated then probably not. the chap at the garage said he'd help with bushes and stuff if i can get the beam off.

 

I have done this, complete removal strip down and rebuild with new polybushes from the states, new nuts and bolts the lot, i had to literally cut the lower control arms off, sheared off a couple of welded nuts and had a bloody hard time stripping it down, took me a good few days with just the subframe on the garage floor carfully cutting with a dremel and angle grinder to get the parts off. I then went and purchased cheap lower arms but realised that they were missing vital plates for strength and the bracketry for the xenon headlamp level adjuster sensor so i had to get plates welded. I wont lie it was a right PITA, i needed a 12ton press too so bought one of these. If you buy new control arms get them from ford if you have Xenon headlamps as i have not seen a cheap set that is correct, same for the front control arms one of these too has to be right for a ST170 with Xenons.
You have been warned lol
I have loads of pictures of my restoration i can post.

 

the hardest thing will be stripping down the rear suspesnion as Sp3no has said. getting the whole lot off in one though is pretty easy if your handy with the spanners.

 

yikes, that puts me off!! if you dont mind putting some pics up id like to have a look.

 

you could just remove the whole lot and wire brush and hammerite the beam as thats what i did.

 

i have already wire brush and hammerited it which has tidied it up immensly. however, it doesnt really compare to a full nut and bolt restoration.

 

true it doesn't compare to a full on resto and if i had my way i'd strip off both front and rear beams and send them for acid dip and paint dip but thats not gonna happen on mine.

 

if your bending cills they are either rotten or your placing in the wrong position
how do we get on with 4 posters when we only use cill jacking points?

 

the sills are fine and the position is correct AFAIK (could be wrong though).

i'll have to think on it a bit more and do some more research before i decide whether to attempt it or not.

 

Rusty Old Subframe


More Rust


Horrid Rust


Strip Down Begun


Regular MOT fail these ones


New Bushes


Cheapo Arms required Modification


Parts


Ford Bolts


Thats Better


You need a press


Sleeves have to be pressed in central


Done


Thank You Press


More Bits finished


Trailing Arms, the text is because i was going to write a guide but never got round to it.



The Big Bit


All back together again


Yes the missus allows me to work in the lounge

 

cheers mate, just out of interest why didnt refurb the arms?

 

Because i had to cut them into little tiny pieces to get them off the subframe.
When the bolts sieze up in the bushes you will eventually tear the bush away from the arm trying to undo the dam things, your then left with a bush attached to a bolt and no way of undoing the bolts the only solution was to cut them off piece by piece lol
So i bought new arms and pressed out the brand new bushes and replaced them with polybushes.
You have to be super careful with these bushes as you can easily deform the seat for the bush sleeve, if you deform the seat the new sleeve will literally drop right through the hole instead of being a friction fit. I did this and had to tack weld the outer sleeves for the bushes to the arm. You have to be very cleaver with what you use to press the bushes out to not deform the arms.

 

i know its a bit late now sp3no but for getting the old bushes out i'd sugest buring the rubber out so your left with just the sleeve and then cut a notch in the sleeve. it will help to not deform the arm any more than it already is from the factory.

if i had an air saw and a press i'd do all my bushes in a heart beat. an angle grinder just cant get into the intricate little spaces to cut the old bolts!

 

il give this some thought, although tbh im going off the idea....

 

I burnt out the rear blade bushes, the stuff a burn bush leaves behind is minging it gets everywhere and smells incredibly toxic. The problems i had with the press bending the arms and stretching the holes was when putting the out sleeves back into the lower control arms, as the sleeve goes through the hole the friction is enough to pull the outer parts towards the inner part, its really tricky to get something between the arm to preven this as due to the shape of the arm it pushes anything you put in there back out again. It hard to explain, it is doable but i fucked it up basically lol

 

Sp3no - how much was the press and where from if you dont mind me asking? Nice job on your rear subframe by the way, looks fantastic. Oh, and where did your bush kit come from?

 

Press was 99pounds on ebay, bushes are from cfm in the states