Live axle drops

As I've mentioned in previous post. I gave up on the brake lines and moved on to the rear end. To be 100% honest I gave fuel lines a crack too but those did not want to cooperate without the the proper disconnect tool. More on that to come later.

Rear axle is held in place by many bolts. I have previously taken out the springs and the main struts. But there are all the arms left in place and some other shock looking linkage. As with the rest of the jobs, I don't see any challenges. In fact, it was somewhat smooth. Get a plank of wood. Put the jack under the diff with wood in between. Jack it up to loosen the tension. Undo all the bolts on the arms at the unibody end. Some of the arms will simply come out others will need a bit of persuasion. In my case, one of the bushings got squeezed due to the deformation resulted from the accident. So that joint point required much more wiggling and and 2x2 persuasion but it did let go. In fact 2x2 fits nicely in between the body and the lateral arm and was very instrumental.

Here's the fun part. After all that wiggling and last arm disconnected the axle rolled down the jack. It did not fall and break anything but gave a clear indication how heavy it is. Truthfully, I was not expecting it to be that heavy. However, my jack was pulling a wheely at that moment. The fact that it ended up on the jack actually worked out well. I simply pulled the axle out on the jack. After my back refused to lift the axle. I got my engine crane out and strapped the axle in. Voilà!

That's the last major job completed. Next one up is the fuel system.