Question on removing torque arm. Am I OK to remove torque arm while car is in the position or do I have to drop rear suspension down as I have read? When removing torque arm from transmission side can I do it with car in this position with a block of wood between torque arm and floor pan? The torque arm is mounted to the body in the front not to the transmission but will need removed from the body mount to pull tranny. My wheels are prevented from moving due to my wood crib stops. I try to be as safe a possible as when you get older gravity is harder on you than when you were young (or so it seems). Thanks in advance.

 

It's almost impossible to remove it while the suspension is holding up the car.

Raise the rear until the wheels are well up off the ground and hanging loose. Support the chassis on 2 jack stands, right in front of the front mount point of the rear control arms. Raise the pumpkin an inch or 2 with your floor jack, just enough to lift it up off of the extension stops in the shocks, and support it with 2 more stands, under the axle tubes. NOT, under the spring brackets; NOT, under the shock brackets; NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT. Under the axle tubes ONLY.

Observe the spring pockets. Notice that they are NOT directly in line with the axles; which produces the result that, whenever there is ANY tension on the springs, they are trying to rotate the rear. With the car and axle supported like this, there is the minimum possible tension on them; specifically, the tendency they create for the rear to rotate, is almost exactly balanced by the weight of the TA. You can literally curl your little finger around the end of the TA and raise & lower it at will like this. It is very eeeeezy to remove it from the TA mount, then remove it from the rear if you want.

Re-installation is the reverse of removal. Put it back together with the car and axle supported the same way as above, rear first then the mount bushing.

Note also, that the springs will very nearly fall out on their own; and in fact WILL if you unbolt the shocks from the axle. Might as well set the old wore-out ones you have now aside and slap some nice new ones up in there instead. And then, it's only 2 more nuts to take out the shocks, wo you might as well... And it's SOOOOOPER EEEEEEEZY to change out the sway bar bushings & end links, preferably with poly; might as well do those too. And of course change out the mount bushing, goes without saying.

For most jobs, transmission R&R for example, you don't really need to remove it. Best to leave it in if it doesn't absolutely have to come out.

 

The torque arm is a UMI torque arm that mounts to the body/frame. I have to remove it at the transmission in order to get transmission out. I don't want to remove it at the back necessarily. Do I still need to hang the suspension in this case to take it off at transmission? It would try to rotate up I assume as the way the springs are positioned on rear side of the rear axel. I probably should have not titled it as torque arm removal I just get the thing out of the way. Thanks!

 

Doesn't matter what brand it is, the springs are trying to rotate it upwards, when there's force on them. So yeah, I'd suspect that if you need it out of the way, you'd want to do it using the same method, to take all that force off of it. Not sure how a tunnel-mount piece would have to be removed from the trans, but w/e, if that's how it is, then that's how it is.

 

OK thanks. Appreciate the response very much.

 

Subscribed (#1766...I learn SO much here!)

 

Sorry to revive an old thread, but were you ok with unbolting the torque arm from the trans from the trans side only while on wheel cribs? Im planning on pulling my trans too from wheel cribs and was wondering if I needed to remove the rear springs first.

 

No.

As long as there's load on the springs, the TA has load on it as well, because the springs aren't centered on the axle tubes. Which is why you MUST do it as I described if you want to avoid busted fingers, parts flying everywhere, and it being impossible to put back together because the axle is torqued off some weird way.

Now, once you get the TA out of there, you could use "wheel cribs" if you want; butt since you'll already have both the chassis and the axle supported, why bother? Likewise, you can't remove the rear springs with the car sitting on the wheels, "cribs" or no; or at least, that's SO FAR FROM the easiest way, as to be stuuupid. If you remove the TA as I described, it's entirely possible that you can then remove them by hand, after unbolting the shocks. Butt if the car is sitting on the wheels, and there's no springs there, it'll be sitting about a foot lower than it would with the springs still there ANYWAY, so removing the springs isn't necessary, or even particularly helpful, to a transmission R&R.

 

Ok, thanks for the information. Guess I was just hoping thered be a lazier way

 

Not sure how much "lazier" it could get... unless you could like, just sit back, crack open a cold adult beverage, yell "TORQUE ARM!!!! GET OUT NOW!" and it does. It's almost that eeeeeeezy anyway.