{Trailing Arm Bushing Swap 1}
{Step by step instructions on how to swap our your trailing arm bushings}
This is a how to on changing out your rear trailing arm bushings so that you can install the polyurethane bushings for a firmer ride while eliminating any squirm or sqhish associated with spirited driving.
The first thing you want to do is to jack up the car, remove the tires, and remove your swaybar, tiebar, or whatever bars you have attached to the rear axle.
On my car, I removed the Eibach swaybar along with the custom tiebar as seen below.
Here is what your axle should look like when they're off. Pretty much factory is what it looks like. lol
The first thing you want to do is to remove the wiring harness for the ABS system which is held in by clips that are easy to remove. Here's one on the axle and a screwdriver basically unclips the retainer for the wire to come loose as seen below.
There are also metal clamps along the axle that should be removed for the harness and brake line to be freed of the axle as seen below. Once you move the clamps out of the way, reinstall the screw so that you don't lose it.
Next, you'll need to unclip the ABS plug off of the back of the hub assembly as you can see here. It simply unplugs and once you do, move it away from the axle assembly as best as you can..
Once all the clips are removed and the ABS clips too, you'll then need to remove the plastic wireway from the axle that runs along the axle itself. This is quite easy to do by taking a screwdriver, prying up the retainer for easy removal as shown below..
The brake lines will have to be removed next and it's best that they're removed at the axle. You'll need a 12mm wrench and a Crescent wrench to take these off and they can be a bit hard but they'll come off usually with not issues. If all else fails, use a pair of vice grips where the 12mm wrench would usually go and that should take care of any stubborn brake lines.
In the picture below, you'll see the brake lines that I'm referring to but don't pay attengion to where I'm pointing as I was pointing to the wrong thing.. I removed the brake line where my middle finger is in the picture as that was the easiest to access while the axle was on the car.
Make sure that you plug up both ends of the brake lines so no dirt or dust can intrude into the lines. I like to use vacuum caps of various different sizes and works well for the application as seen in the pictures
By now most everything should be removed that will be in the way of the axle being removed off of the car. For the sake of making it easy, I couldn't find a way to remove the e-brake cable so I just cut it and will worry about it when it all goes back together. Since I'm also doing the Neon disc swap simutaneously, I won't be using the same e-brake line and if I do, will just hit the junkyard to reinstall another. So for those of you wanting to keep your e-brake that is one thing you'll have to figure out yourselves.
My only thing that I believe you can do to remove the e-brake cable is to remove your center console and disconnect your main cable from the e-brake handle so as to relieve the tension on it and give you slack to remove the cable from the axle.
Back to removing the axle. Now you should be able to remove the axle by finding this bolt under the shock bottom mount as shown here. This nut requires an 18mm socket. It really wasn't torqued that tight so it shouldn't be that bad unless you've got one that is really rusted.
Loosen the above nut from the axle but don't take it off completely. From here you want to loosen up the axle bushing nut and bolt using an 18mm wrench on the back side of the mount and an 18mm socket for easy removal as shown below.
I used a couple of extra jack stands to place under the axle so that when I remove all the nuts and bolts that hold the axle, it would not just drop to the ground and I can remove it a bit easier.
Once done, remove all the nuts and bolts to remove the axle and you've gotten this far in the project.
