[FredH]

The new front suspension and brakes are done, so I've moved to the rear and removed the old shocks and broken springs. I started with the right control arm and new spring, but I've had no success reassembling it.

The car is sitting on jack stands, and I am using a floor jack, pry bars and hand tools. I researched methods here, and tried the control arm bolted at the center as described in the second video at this forum's thread at: Rear spring installation advice?. I tried in vain for hours to align bolt holes in those described "sweet spots". When that didn't work, I tried having the control arm first bolted under the spring as described in the first video in that thread, but all the other connection points were even more difficult to align.

I was under the impression an internal spring compressor is not required, and I was able to get the spring properly fitted with the control arm raised into place with the floor jack. Would a spring compressor take enough tension off the control arm before alignment of all the parts? (I just purchased an internal compressor at NAPA.)

I've been hours at this but now I'm stuck!

I will appreciate good DIY advice. Thanks in advance.

 

[Brett San Diego]

Did you disconnect the trailing arm at the wheel carrier (hub). This is what the guy does in the second video at about 1:10 min. It's the first thing he does. With the suspension allowed to droop when the car is jacked up, that trailing arm pulls the hub toward the front of the car a lot, and that may be one reason for your troubles. But, it should all realign once you've jacked the wheel carrier back up to the normal ride height position. With the car as high as you have it on jack stands, are you able to jack the wheel carrier all the way up to normal ride height? Add some blocks of wood on your jack if needed.

You might also practice aligning everything without the spring in place. Does it go back together, then?

Brett

 

[SoCal_XC70]

I recently went through something similar with my '05 XC. I removed a rear strut assembly to swap out the anti-sway bar with a beefier V70R bar. Removing the strut assembly was easy enough, but getting it back in and oriented properly was allot tougher, so I opted to unbolt the trailing arm where it connects to the wheel hub to free up room to get the strut assembly bolted in. This worked fine getting the strut assembly installed but when I went to bolt up the trailing arm to the wheel, the holes didn't line up. I tried pry bars, ratcheting straps, a bottle jack, anything I could get my hands on to pull the two closer, but nothing worked, so I did like Brett explained above and used my trolley jack to lift the wheel hub from below and compress the spring assembly. As I lifted the wheel hub from below and compressed the spring, the holes came closer together, but they never actually lined up. It wasn't until I slowly released the jack and lowered the wheel back down that the holes started to align. Not sure why that happened, but I was happy to take th win.

 

[FredH]

Yes, the trailing arm was unbolted. Current status is all bolts are back in except the trailing arm bolt; the holes for the trailing arm hole are still way off when I lift the hub. The spring is in the control arm and internal compressor is still taking up much but not all the tension. I left it for the night, came inside and started reading your replies (thanks, guys!).

...As I lifted the wheel hub from below and compressed the spring, the holes came closer together, but they never actually lined up. It wasn't until I slowly released the jack and lowered the wheel back down that the holes started to align. Not sure why that happened, but I was happy to take th win.

I had jacked it up, gave up for the night and lowered it without paying attention. I'll watch more closely tomorrow to see if I can learn anything from jacking the hub up and down. I hope there's an answer.

The internal spring compressor is taking up much but not all the tension as I reassembled it all. Its center threaded shaft prevents me from compressing further because it will strike the shock mount. If threading the trailing arm bolt requires taking further tension off the suspension by compressing the spring further, I'll remove the new shock mounts to make room for the compressor's shaft, but can the mounts be fished up through the spring on the end of the shock to re-bolt to the shock tower? Otherwise, I'll have to disassemble everything, remove the compressor and shorten its threaded shaft with a hacksaw in the vise.

As I left it (then there's the left side to deal with):

 

[Brett San Diego]

Without actually having experience with it, I think you'll have to ditch the spring compressor.

How close are you to having the hub at normal ride height? I'm pretty sure you'll have to get the hub to its "neutral" position, where it will sit naturally with all the weight of the car on the spring. They design the suspension to have no tension in the bushings when at normal ride height.

Brett

 

[FredH]

Without actually having experience with it, I think you'll have to ditch the spring compressor.

How close are you to having the hub at normal ride height? I'm pretty sure you'll have to get the hub to its "neutral" position, where it will sit naturally with all the weight of the car on the spring. They design the suspension to have no tension in the bushings when at normal ride height.

Ditch the spring compressor for the hub to reach neutral position when jacked up? I left it in thinking that would assist lining up the holes for the trailing arm, but you may have a point. I'll find out tomorrow.

 

[Hoenig]

If you havent solved it already, you can compress the rear control arm down by wedging the factory scissor jack between the metal point in the fender liner and the rotor (or someplace else thats sturdy). That will allow you to line up the control arm with the rear shock. It's a little sketchy but it works. I believe your answer is in this thread:

Rear shock replacement Q's

Hi guys, asking over here on the R forum as there are more posts than the base S60 forum and all the cars are AWD. OK, first of, I love this platform. It's one of the best laid out for maintenance I've worked on. I have an 07 S60 I got for me youngest daughter. This weekend I set out to...

www.swedespeed.com

 

[Brett San Diego]

If you havent solved it already, you can compress the rear control arm down by wedging the factory scissor jack between the metal point in the fender liner and the rotor (or someplace else thats sturdy). That will allow you to line up the control arm with the rear shock. It's a little sketchy but it works. I believe your answer is in this thread:

Rear shock replacement Q's

Hi guys, asking over here on the R forum as there are more posts than the base S60 forum and all the cars are AWD. OK, first of, I love this platform. It's one of the best laid out for maintenance I've worked on. I have an 07 S60 I got for me youngest daughter. This weekend I set out to...

www.swedespeed.com

That thread concerns a different suspension design, a coilover setup like the XC70. I don't know the regular AWD wagons or R models, but it seems that they are also a coilover rear setup if I understand the discussion correctly.

The regular FWD wagons and S60's have a separate coil spring and shock in the rear. It's different. Having an XC70 myself and having done extensive rear suspension work on it, I understand putting the factory jack on the control arm to lower the arm so you can pull out the rear coilover. I'm not sure you can lower the arm enough in the FWD wagon or S60 to remove the spring without also using a spring compressor. I suspect no, you can't.

Brett

 

[Brett San Diego]

Ditch the spring compressor for the hub to reach neutral position when jacked up? I left it in thinking that would assist lining up the holes for the trailing arm, but you may have a point. I'll find out tomorrow.

Spring compressor or no compressor, just do what it takes to get the hub to its neutral position. I'm guessing the spring compressor will just fall loose once you get the hub to the neutral position, so it will be useless anyway.

Also, you might loosen the front bolt for the trailing arm so the arm can swing freely. Then line things up, get all the bolts started, but don't tighten the bolts until you have the hub at normal ride height by either keeping the hub jacked up when the wheel is off or by putting the wheel back on and putting the car on the ground. You want to set the final torque on the bolts at the neutral position not when the hub is hanging way down out of position with the car jacked up. That ensures that the bushings are also at a neutral position when the hub is at its neutral position.

It's probably easier to do with the wheel off and hub jacked up. Not much room to work a large wrench under the car when it's on the ground.

Brett

 

[SoCal_XC70]

Your last picture is exactly the problem I had when I removed the rear strut assembly on my XC. Our suspension set-ups are different, but we both had the same issue. To reiterate, I got the holes to align by using a floor jack to lift the wheel hub up then slowly lowering it, stopping every inch or so to see if the holes were coming together. I had to do this a couple of times, to get it to work. The wheel was still supported by the jack when the holes finally aligned so I agree with Brett there's a "neutral" position where everything lines up that you should be able to find by raising and lowing the wheel hub. I also loosened the bolt at the other end of the trailing arm to make things a little easier, then torqued everything down when all the bolts were back in. That may help you a little too.

 

[FredH]

The neutral position got me part way there. But I finally looked at the other end of the trailing arm and saw, where it enters the bushing, a bit of pry bar work could shift the arm perfectly to line up the holes at the hub. And it did!

Note that the control-arm-to-hub bolt must be torqued before installing the trailing arm because the trailing arm blocks access to the bolt. BTDT :-(

So, to sum up for those who find themselves facing the same quandary, here is what worked:

Note that after repeated failed efforts to reassemble without an internal spring compressor, I bought a $45 compressor from the local NAPA (P/N BK 7760006 - less 20% for vets and AAA). Now that I learned the technique with the trailing arm, I might have done without the compressor, but it made it much easier.

1. control arm is first bolted at the center of the car
2. control arm is then bolted to hub
3. push down hub, insert compressed spring and remove compressor
4. torque (80Nm) control arm bolts before dealing with the trailing arm
5. raise hub with jack to "neutral position" (i.e., car just lifts off same side jack stand) to get trailing arm bolt hole as close as you can
6. apply pry bar on other end of trailing arm (at the big bushing) to manipulate bolt holes into position. I also used a large punch at the bolt hole for tweaking into position to slide that last bolt in
7. drop car back onto jack stand
8. thread and torque (80Nm) trailing arm bolt
9. install shock and wheel

My internal spring compressor is for sale (only used on two springs!); I never want to do this again.

 

[SoCal_XC70]

Nice job! How does it look? Did the new springs alter the stance or change the way the car sits?

 

[Brett San Diego]

Cool!

 

[FredH]

Nice job! How does it look? Did the new springs alter the stance or change the way the car sits?

No change. I went pure stock for simplicity's sake: Sachs shocks and OEM springs at the original spec.