Project Ford Mondeo 2.0 TDCi
PART TWO: Rob Hawkins visits AES near York to follow them replacing the rear trailing arm bushes, coil springs, dampers and bump stops.
“T hey either go in first time or they are a pig of a job,” remarks mechanic Pete at AES as we look at the replacement febi trailing arm bushes that we’re about to fit on our Mondeo project vehicle. Sure enough, the first one we tackled, which was the nearside rear, was a nightmare and despite having a useful fitting tool from Sykes-Pickavant, and we chamfered the edge of the outer casing to help with fitting , it still took us several attempts. The offside rear went in without a fight. Had we not been using a tool to help with seating the replacement bush, it would have surely been a much longer job, involving the removal of the trailing arm to be able to use a hydraulic press.
In fact, removal of components to help with fitting was something that cropped up again when it came to replacing the rear coil springs. Ideally, the lower arms where the springs sit should be partly detached to allow the springs to be extracted, but the respective fastenings are usually seized or can shear. Mark Shipman at AES wisely advised us to leave them well alone. However, he did suggest tr ying to undo the rearmost mounting bolt for the rear subframe, which would also provide a little more room to extract each coil spring. Sadly, these were also well and truly seized and in danger of shearing. Fortunately, we had one more solution, which involved using a spring compressor, and it worked.
Having successfully replaced the rear trailing arm bushes, coil springs, dampers and bump stops, we’re now feeling confident to tackle and tick off more of the jobs on our list. Soon after this project star ted, we visited Autovaux (www.autovaux.co.uk) to collect a boot-full of parts, so we’ll be fitting them over the next few issues of CM.
REAR SUSPENSION WORK
