Next I attacked the rear struts, same procedure as before required to attach the bump stops and gaiters in place, once again remembering to align the two flats at the top of the piston rod inside outside before tightening the last cable tie. Again to prevent the gaiter getting twisted when lining up the top mount later. The rear coil springs also have one end flat ground, which needs to be facing upwards, whilst the other unground end needs to locate in the strut bottom cup as shown in the picture below.
The top mount and top cup of the rear shock is a one-piece item unlike the two-piece item at the front. This needs to be fitted on top of the ground end of the spring, it again needs to be lined up with the mounting stud which is the odd one out (tip of an isosceles triangle) facing the outside of the car (hub mounting lug side). There is then a spacer, which goes on before the top nut.
Again my trusty helper Maggie span the top nut on while I compressed the spring about 30mm but as I said before you can use a set of spring compressors instead..it just takes longer. A word of caution here though, I would
not recommend trying to
remove any car coil spring without the aid of compressors since it is impossible to know the level of compression an existing spring is under. I then tightened the top nut up fully, making sure the flats on the piston rod located properly in the top mount. I will again torque them up fully when installed in the car. See picture below of the fully assembled strut.
Next stage will be removing the old ones and fitting these to the car.
Bob