duckyz

I am one of the happiest Z owners in the world right now. After 15 years of owning this car, I FINALLY got part of the suspension replaced. Today, I tackled the rear part of the car. I hope I can post all of the pics...



That, my fellow Z owners, is the rear shock mount...old and busted style. I have some more shocking pics of that to follow.



What you're looking at is a 25 year old shock and spring. ...and what the hell are those things in the spring?!?!?



Who needs spring compressors? Not me!!!



Old and busted.



More old and busted...



Old and busted vs. new hotness!!!



This is what's left of the shock mount and bushing from the old shock itself. For a minute, when it was still on the car, I thought it was part of the mount itself. I took a pair of channel locks and it twisted right off. The stub where the shock actually mounts in was just fine.



Some new hotness installed. As you can see, the bracket is bent a bit. The passenger side was much worse and it took me about 3 hours to get it re connected.



New hotness installed!!! I got crazy with the assembly so I apologize for the lack of pics from that.



More new hotness!!!

It was too dark when I finished to get pics of the ride height, but it is up about 1.5". When I took it for a test drive, I couldn't believe the difference. Night and day. Before, if I would hammer the gas after shifting into 2nd, I would scrape the tail pipe. Now, the squat is pretty much non existent even on initial takeoff. When taking turns at speed, the rear shudder is gone and the car just flows through. I have a little push because the fronts aren't done yet, but it's 100% better than before. Overall, the car rides like it should. Nice and stiff. Braking time has shortened a little and acceleration is just crazy. I can't wait to get the fronts done!!!

NismoPick

Sickness! Those are the KYB's that I have, plus Eibach springs. Indeed a big difference.

duckyz

This is just part 1. I still have to do the front end... ball joints, bushings, the whole nine yards.

mikeatrpi

That looks great so far! I bet the difference in handling will be even more profound when you finish the fronts. How long did this job take?

BlueKitsune

I'm kinda doing the same thing. Sept I'm rebuilding the entire rear subframe from an 83 (No CV axles) to put into my 80

duckyz

Longer than I wanted it to... About 7 hours. But I'd guess that 4 of those hours were trying to re-fit the passenger side sway bar bracket with the new bushing. It was bent so badly I had to hammer a 1 1/16" socket into it just so the new bushing would fit. Then the other side of the bracket was bent as well, so I had a lot of finagling to do just to get the bolts to bite. Once that happened, the entire swap for the passenger side took about 30 minutes. I wager I could do the job again in about 2 hrs. tops.

I had never done anything like this before, so it was a learning experience as well.