On Wed, 22 May 1996 mike@ShoppersDrugMart.ca wrote:
>Since last season I've noticed the driver's side rear wheel sagging more
>than the passenger side. When loaded with two passengers (about 350 lbs)
>the driver's side is about 25 degrees and the passenger side is about 15
>degrees. My first thought was trailing arm bushings, but close inspection
>shows them to be fine as are all trailing arm/suspension bits....
Mike:
I'm in the middle of redoing the rear suspension on my TR6 and the experience
has been most revealing. First: you can't really tell if the trailing arm
bushings are OK until you remove them from the trailing arm bores. Mine looked
OK on the outside, but were actually quite eccentric with the middle bore once I
pulled them out. If you're thinking about pulling the rear suspension apart,
continue on to these bushings, it isn't actually that hard and all the previous
postings on this topic seem to indicate that the results are worth the effort.
I also had the same type of "clicking" sound eminating from one of the rear
axles when I pushed down on the rear suspension. Upon disassembly, I discovered
that one of the half shaft splines was quite dry and it's inability to slide was
probably the source of the clicking. Take the time to remove the half-shaft
rubber gaiters and look at the splines to see if they're lubricated. I also
found that the U-joints on the same half shaft needed replacing - which probably
exacerbated this situation. These are now replaced and the price wasn't that
bad (the MOOG catalog still lists and stocks TR6 universals!!).
The biggest suprise however was the source of my (car's) rear end sag (which
also was more pronounced on one side of the car when compared to the other). I
found that both coil springs were at the factory spec "free height" but both the
top and bottom rubber spacers on one of the springs were totally destroyed -
hence the uneven ride height. This would have been a cheap fix (ie replace the
rubber spacers only) but I had already bought new springs from Moss and I put
them in anyway because Moss's restocking charge and the already paid Canadian
Government duty/taxes made returning them economically questionable.
The morale of the story is you really don't know what's wrong with your rear
suspension until you take it apart. Even thourgh Murphy's law says that you'll
find something you didn't expect, the work isn't that hard (it'll take a very
full weekend to do this) and the results in the end will probably be quite
worthwhile.
As an aside: when I finished the rear suspension disassembly, I walked into our
house and announced to my wife that before I could finish the job, I would have
to get new nuts and my universal joint probably need rebuilding. She just
smiled at me and replied that she couldn't afford to get ME fixed because I had
already spend all of our funds on that damned car. She clearly didn't understand
me when I said that Nylocks were really quite cheap.
Have fun!
Brian Lanoway
73 TR6 with its rear end almost re-assembled.
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