Coils need to come out to replace them. If you're lucky, unbolting shocks and swaybar endlinks is all need for enough droop. You may need to loosen all control arm bolts if the bushings don't want to move enough - which can end in a disaster depending on the amount of rust on the bolts/ bushings
A shock disconnect is all that I needed. If you are stock, the rear are easy. If anything goes wrong , your spring compressor should get you past the finish line.
If memory serves, all I needed to do was disconnect the shocks to get enough droop. Maybe had to put my foot on the wheel hub to push it down that little bit extra to get the top of the spring clear of the old isolator.
Just FWIW, I found that the isolators were sided. They look interchangeable at first glance, but after I installed them and jacked the axle back up so that the vehicle weight was on the springs, I could see that the passenger side one was bulging between the coils. It turned out that there are lumps moulded into the rubber that are meant to act as stops for the upper ends of the coils, and they need to be fitted to the correct sides, although the way the driver side isolator and coil sat, there was no bulging, but the end of the coil wasn't up against the stop as it should have been.
Swapped the isolators to the opposite sides, and everything was sitting properly.
My fronts were easy to remove but the rears had twisted and would not budge. I ended up leaving them, probably could have cut them out, but didn't want to risk damaging the perches.
I just did this on Friday. You will have to remove the springs to remove remove/replace the iso's. removing the lower shock mount and sway bar endlinks will allow the axle to drop far enough to pull the springs out with a bit of downward "umph" force applied to the end of the axle.
I replaced my iso's with factory replacements and they were only front/rear specific and not side to side specific in my case.
They have a flat side, so that part should be pretty self-evident.
If you have the UC suspension, it's the same part # for both sides. If you have the standard suspension, there are 2 different part numbers for right and left, with the right side being the same part number as the UC isolator.
You just need to look at how the upper end of the spring sits. The moulded "lump" on the isolator needs to be next to the cut end of the spring, to act as a stop and prevent it rotating.
Okay so tearing everything down right now. I got the front wheels on the ground and Tall jack stands at the rear of the unibody so that the rear axle hangs freely.
Once I took the wheel off on the worst side, I noticed this. The sway bar is sitting on the coil spring and the rubeer bushing at the top looks like the weight on my wheel has been scraping it pretty good.
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