Well, thanks to all your advice (particularly Brian Lanoway -- thanks!)
I've started a rear-end rebuild on the TR6. Last night I pulled off the
rear axle shafts, brakes, etc. with only one snag. The DPO, who must have
pulled this apart before, did two things when he re-assembled it:
1) Attached the trailing arm brackets to the trailing arms *before
attaching the brackets to the frame. Then he inserted the trailing arm
bolts through the bushings in reverse so that the inboard bolts cannot
be removed from the trailing arm bushings without dropping the brackets
from the frame first!
2) Then, in his infinite wisdom, he *spot-welded* the brackets to the
frame (to add rigidity I assume).
So, now I've got everything apart on the driver's side except for the
inboard trailing arm bolt/bushing. I managed to get the top bracket bolt
out on that side but the bottom one won't budge. Looks like I have to
either a) cut the trailing arm bolt head off and pull it out through the
bushing or b) cut the lower bracket bolt off and break the welds so I can
drop the whole mess off the frame and remove the bolt at that point. Any
other suggestions?
By the way, so far I've found a bad u-joint and dry sliding shafts so that
probably accounts for some of my problems. Also, I saved some time by
*not* following Haynes/Bentley advice and separated the half shafts before
unbolting from the diff. Since the boot was unattached and rolling around
anyway there was no difficulty in doing this. If anyone does it this way
make sure you're careful with the male (splined) end so no damage is
sustained.
Mike Himelfarb.
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