Rear shock bushing removal

[bnam]

I was tracking down a clunk from the rear suspension that was present since I got the car. Initially I thought it was from the zip tied exhaust, but fixing that did not solve it. I narrowed it down this morning to coming from around the rear passenger side shock and even though the nuts were tight, the top of the shock inside the trunk moved just a bit when i bounced the car. Removing the shock I found this. I believe this bushing is mounted upside down. The narrower end according to Haynes should be in the bottom.

Now, how do I remove this bushing?

THx,

Byas

[mike472]

It looks like its in the right way. Is it torn through the middle when you flex it side to side? Stick a big screwdriver through the hole and flex it. Was there a washer(#4) on top and on the bottom like in the diagram? The side that's showing on top should be tapered. Its important that you're not missing the #3 spacer sleeve goes inside rubber bushing. This would make it noisy for sure.

You can get it out by using a piece of plastic pipe for a bushing and a washer and bolt setup to pull it out from underneath the car. It helps to have an assistant hold the puller bolt from the bottom while you tighten down on the puller from above. Spray it real well with Vinylex or similar to help it slip out. Reverse procedure pulling it back in. You want to pull the tapered end of that bushing into the body hole from underneath.

I still had to use a small flat bladed screwdriver to get it in completely. Do not over tighten when putting this back together. You need to just tighten it enough to preload the rubber bushing slightly and fit the dust cover on over the two locked 8mm nuts.

http://www.penskeparts.com/DiagramsMain.aspx?vid=47140&rnd=03192010

[bnam]

Thanks!!

I left the bushing as is. I am a bit puzzled though. While the parts diagram shows the narrow end on top, Haynes says it should be at the bottom and the shape of the spacers #4 would support that -- the depression on the lower one (which in this case is part of the Bilstein HD black shock cover) is the narrower dia depression while the upper washer has a larger dia depression.

So, not sure what caused the noise. After putting it back together the noise seems to have gone away -- though I'll want to test it with a drive to see if it returns.

One possibility is that perhaps the lower mount was loose (didn't feel like that when I removed it) and now that I've tightened it perhaps it helped.

Byas

[bnam]

The factory manual shows this shape for the bushing. Slightly different than the parts diagram. Do the new bushings look like this (the last pic)?

[mfbanres]

Something else you may want to check are the subframe to body mounts. Many years ago I had a clunk from the rear that drove me nuts....could not find it, until one day I had it jacked up and noticed the inside of the subframe mount had separated. New mount, problem gone.

[bnam]

I had thought about that. But luckily -- took a 6mi drive last evening and no more clunking.

B

[OriginalOwner]

bnam,

I've always installed 'em as shown in your picture. Never a problem.

As for removal, I always have new ones to install, so I use a hacksaw to cut off the "head" of the old one.

Cheers,

Carl