The last parts to be replaced are the spring cushions. These are pretty well at end-of-life.
The jack is held in place by the short piece of 2X4 clamped to the spring.
I was careful in removing the bolts holding the spring cushions. Fortunately they are grade 8 bolts and took the strain of getting the old rusted on castle nuts off. I used lots of penetrating oil to help things along. Cleaned and sandblasted above and ready for paint.
I’ve let the leaf down so I could use the jack on the other side. It is a bit tricky jacking the spring as it lifts the car off the rear jack so I needed to watch that it settled back down right. Easy now to clean and apply rocker guard to the trailing arm and spring ends. Rocker guard is tar like and doesn’t seem to mind any bits of old oil or grease still on the part. It works well on a-arms and other under body metal that is not visible.
The parking brake bracket on the right side was bent and broken off on the bottom. I’m no welder, but I can get a bit of weld on spots like this. As you can see by all the welding spatter the trailing arms are not welded very nicely at the factory. Maybe these are not normal.
The new bushings show just how bad the old bushings had gotten. Ive been told that the harder polyurethane bushings can squeak so I’ll give them a light coating of fluid film on assembly and hopefully that will be enough.
Coated in rocker guard. Brushed on so not as smooth as spray, but the arm is pretty rough itself so no matter really. I”ll clean away any rocker guard on the mating surface for the spindle support and then apply a coat of fluid film when I put it together.
Next: getting at the rear spindles.