Rear Spring isolators/mountings

Cracked rear spring mounts were identified in the vehicle condition report provided by my local main dealer- who also quoted The parts were cheap enough from ebay. First step is to jack the car and support the rear both sides on axle stands. Remove the rear wheels.

If doing only one side then it will be necessary to install spring compressors at this stage- if doing both sides as I was then you can relieve the tension fully on both using a trolley jack. I positioned this under the swinging arm and raise the jack to relieve the tension by compressing the spring slightly. Identify the lower shock absorber mounting bolts shown here.

Clean the protruding thread with a wire brush. 

Note that the 19mm nut through which the thread protrudes is welded to the arm and does not unscrew. You remove the bolt by unscrewing the 15mm head on the inside of the mount. The bolt should come out relatively easily.

Once the bolt is out you can lower the jack, and with it thecsuspnsion arm. However, this will not go down far enough to remove the spring or its mounts.

Repeat these steps on the opposite side and lower this arm.

Both will lower together and this time they should move far enough to pull out the spring. This will usually come out with thetop mount, or isolator, still attached. Take note at this stage as to which way up the spring is fitted and how it locates  into the mount- tricky if the mount comes off the spring. However its only a push fit so easily recovered if it does come out . Pic below the spring has slipped off the top mount and remained stuck on the car body. The mount is clearly degraded so I pulled it off and discarded it.

I didn't need to remove the lower mounts but if you need to then they are readily removed at this stage as the spring just lifts out.

Note that both mounts have a location pip on the rear which fits into a slot or hole in the car body. This ensures you cannot refit the mountings incorrectly but in addition there is also a forward facing arrow on the lower mount. Note that this mount also has a forward location hook that the spring must slip under.

At this point,  the Haynes manual tells you that its important to ensure the springs are correctly engaged in their mountings- however there is no description of what "correctly" might mean and no photographs. In the absence of such information I simply fitted the springs as they had been positioned when I stripped them. The lower mount is shown above and the upper in the pictures below. I made sure that the flat end of the spring butted up against one of the stops molded into the mounting

Reassembly is pretty much the reverse of stripping. Use the jack to lift the suspension arm to the same height as the shock absorber and lever with a screwdriver to get the holes to align. I used Loctite thread locker to secure the bolts.

The bolts require a final torquing to 115Nm- but only when the car is standing on its wheels and they are supporting its weight. However, 115Nm requires a fairly sizeable torque wrench, and there will probably be insufficient clearance beneath the car in which to use it. Its probably best to lower the car onto a support or ramps so that the suspension is under load, but gives more space in which to operate the wrench!

The old mounts were horribly worn , split and degraded.