It's not hard at all, the main tool you need is a floor jack and jack stands.
Jack up the rear of the car and support the car under the torque boxes. With the floor jack under the differential, unbolt the rear shocks.
Once the shocks are undone, lower the axle and remove the springs. I have found that if you leave the wheels on, you can slip your foot into the wheel and step down, which will relax the spring on the side you're stepping on, and they almost literally fall out. Do the same thing on the other side.
When replacing the arms, remove ONE ARM AT A TIME! make sure you replace that arm before moving on. this prevents the axle from shifting around uncontrollably.
Once all of the arms are installed, do not tighten all of the bolts completely. You'll want to raise the axle back up under the body so it's near ride height. THEN tighten all the bolts.
lower the axle back down and re-install the springs the same way you took them out.
jack the axle back up and bolt your shocks back in.
Thanks fellasI found it to be pretty easy. Only a few bolts.
Thanks man. I was wondering what bolts were in there. Yeah they're the originals, this job is staring to sound a little rough. Dang I wish I had a lift...as said, the only things that will really bite you in this is the factory bolts. if they've never been removed, they WILL be rusted to hell and back, and WILL be a pita to take out. a couple good punches, a hammer, and an impact wrench will all be handy. even if by some miracle theyre not rusted up, put some new bolts in while you're there, the lowers are M12 thread x 110mm, class 10.9 (metric version of 8.8). local fastenal near me had em in stock when i did mine, 4 bolts/nuts, 8 washers, and 4 lockwashers was like $10-15 iirc.
So I get a set of arms and replace urethane bushing that comes with them on the chassis side w rubber bushings?Mike, be sure the torque box side bushings are factory rubber style, Not urethane. On the Axle side urethane is good. This will help with wheel hop and not cause noise/vibration or tear torque boxes. You can find them cheap at NPD.
Unless you're going MM heavy duty LCA's, which are designed stronger and rubber/urethane like above .... the rubber/urethane replacements are your best bet...
Yeah man the car lived with pretty much stock power all it's life and the bushings are stock w a million miles on em(Bout 300k). It's time for bushings I know. The tail wag wasn't near as dramatic before the blower. I gotta get sum arms...This is what I put in http://www.maximummotorsports.com/Heavy-Duty-Mustang-Rear-Lower-Control-Arms-1979-1998-P498.aspx, the bushings are rubber at the torque box and spherical at the axle, I lost my corner carvers link that did a deep dive technical analysis on all the typical solutions, but basically only thing better is a Torque Arm and Pan Hard bar, the linked LCA will reduce flex dramatically. The factory LCA is just stamped metal and it flexes with drivetrain torque Like Chuckman said factory uppers are fine lowers will stop the flex. You could swap the uppers rubber axle side bushings with urethane, but it they look ok dont even mess them,
If its swaying that much though its pretty likely the bushings on upper and lowers may be shot, doubt you had enoughpower or poor aftermarket controls arms that would tear your torque boxes..... if you weld, weld the seams on the torque boxes, like so
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