General Removing rear shocks, how on earth?

[Bazooka Boo]

I'm about to change the front and rear shocks on the wife's Sei.

Fronts are a doddle, but the rears???? How on earth do you get any kind of tool on the top bolt, short of cutting the floor out!

What size are the nuts, 14, 15, mm? I've absolutely no idea how you are meant to torque the bolts up once fitted either.

Can anyone offer any advice, on what tools they used to complete this job? I think I'm going to have to weld my own ring spanner with a scaffold pole attached....

Many thanks.
Jon

 

[The Panda Nut]

Search the posts of @FiatMatt94 on here. He is a bit of an expert on these now.. I am sure its not hard though

 

[FiatMatt94]

I'm about to change the front and rear shocks on the wife's Sei.

Fronts are a doddle, but the rears???? How on earth do you get any kind of tool on the top bolt, short of cutting the floor out!

What size are the nuts, 14, 15, mm? I've absolutely no idea how you are meant to torque the bolts up once fitted either.

Can anyone offer any advice, on what tools they used to complete this job? I think I'm going to have to weld my own ring spanner with a scaffold pole attached....

Many thanks.
Jon

The rears are very easy as well it's just 2 bolts but there is a knack to doing them, so both the top & bottom bolts are 17mm. The access to the bottom one is easy but it'll come out a lot easier if you jack it up a little on the trailing arm where the bottom of the damper bolts into the arm so that it's compressed every so slightly which will help it come undone, use plenty of penetrating fluid. Where the bolt goes through the arm it has a captive nut on the arm. Once the bottom bolt is out leave the jack in position so that the spring doesn't fall out as without the bolt the arm will fall downwards if the jack isn't there.

The top one is also 17mm & access is not your best friend but it can be undone with a swan neck 17mm spanner, the top one also has a captive nut so it's just the case of undoing the bolt & it should come out.

So when installing the new damper do the top bolt first it can be a little fiddly to line up but it will go eventually, don't do it up fully though as you'll need to move it around slightly to line the bottom bolt up, you may have to adjust the height of the jack ever so slightly so that the bottom bolt lines up with the holes in the damper & trailing arm then once the bottom bolt is in you can fully tighten both top & bottom bolts then that's job done.

 

[Bazooka Boo]

The rears are very easy as well it's just 2 bolts but there is a knack to doing them, so both the top & bottom bolts are 17mm. The access to the bottom one is easy but it'll come out a lot easier if you jack it up a little on the trailing arm where the bottom of the damper bolts into the arm so that it's compressed every so slightly which will help it come undone, use plenty of penetrating fluid. Where the bolt goes through the arm it has a captive nut on the arm. Once the bottom bolt is out leave the jack in position so that the spring doesn't fall out as without the bolt the arm will fall downwards if the jack isn't there.
View attachment 477593

The top one is also 17mm & access is not your best friend but it can be undone with a swan neck 17mm spanner, the top one also has a captive nut so it's just the case of undoing the bolt & it should come out.
View attachment 477596

So when installing the new damper do the top bolt first it can be a little fiddly to line up but it will go eventually, don't do it up fully though as you'll need to move it around slightly to line the bottom bolt up, you may have to adjust the height of the jack ever so slightly so that the bottom bolt lines up with the holes in the damper & trailing arm then once the bottom bolt is in you can fully tighten both top & bottom bolts then

 

[Bazooka Boo]

Excellent, thank you very much.

I wasn't aware that they had a captive nut on the bolts, that certainly makes the job easier!

Thank you once again!