I proceeded to strip the rear brake system and remove the rear arms off the car.

I wanted the car looking and feeling like new, so I knew I was going to get some parts powder coated. To do this, I’d need to also remove the hubs and wheel bearings from the arms.

The car was in surprisingly good condition for a 17 year old car. Only powder coating the arms would still leave some surface rust on the rear differential cradle, so I decided to drop the rear diff and remove the bushes from the cradle as well.

Unfortunately when removing the rear trailing arms, the hard brake lines snapped due to their age and the nut being fused with the pipe. The ABS sensors also snapped when removing.

I started to remove the bushes and bearings from the arms and get them ready for coating.

I purchased a 6 ton hydraulic to aid with pushing the old bushes and bearings out.

I decided I was going to eventually put some Bilstein B14 coilovers on the car as these come quite highly rated on the forums. I thought that in order to best acompany the new suspension, I’d replace the anti-roll bars on the front and rear of the car with H&R which would provide better handling.

I started to place orders with TPS for most of the components I needed: Wheel bearings Wheel hubs ABS sensors Trailing arm bushes Rear differential cradle bushes Rear arm spring hats and bottoms Drop links anti-roll bar brackets Dust shields Rear callipers Rear calliper carriers Rear discs Rear pads Handbrake cables Hard brake lines for the rear arms Hard brake lines from the ABS pump to the rear trailing arms Various brake line clips and brackets All differential cradle and final drive support bushes Brake fluid New rear drive shafts All the required nuts and bolts to cover this