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Click an image to enlarge. |
| First jack up the rear of the car. The easiest spot is to jack it up at the rear differential, using a 2x4 to prevent damage to the diff case. |
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| Then support the rear of the vehicle with jack stands at this location on each side. |
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Open up your lift gate to access the top of the rear struts. If you have the cargo cover, you'll need to remove it.
You will also need to open the rear doors. |
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To access the strut tops, remove the screw holding down the bag holder.
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| Using a screw driver wrapped in a towel (to prevent scratching the plastic) carefully pry up and it will come free. |
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| Then carefully pull the cover towards the center of the car to release it from the wall then pivot it forward so it "unwraps" from your C-pillar (which is why you need to open the door). |
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Now you can see the top of the strut which is protected by a metal cover.
You can loosen the top strut nuts now if you want, but do not remove them yet. |
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| Now take off your wheels to access the wheel hub and struts. Here is a picture of the front of the right rear suspension. |
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Here is a picture of the back of the right rear suspension and the brake line, which is held in place by a clip.
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You'll need to remove the clip in order to free the brake line.
I found it hard to get enough grip with pliers to pull it out directly so I used a screw driver and a hammer to tap it out from underneath.
Make sure you keep the clip. |
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Now remove the lower strut bolts. The rear nuts are a bit hard to reach so use a open ended, crescent or large adjustable wrench to hold the nut, while you loosen the bolt.
You will probably want a breaker bar. I used a short 18" breaker bar and that gave me enough leverage.
You may need to muscle out the bolts. Sometimes they're easy to get out, sometimes not. You may need to wiggle the wheel hub to get them out. |
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Once the bottom strut bolts are removed, you can remove the nuts from the strut top.
Then you can wiggle the entire strut assembly until you can get it out. |
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| Here's a comparison of the stock rear strut compared to the WRX rear strut. The overall length only differs by an inch, but the total drop with load will be 2-2.5" |
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Simply reverse the process using the WRX strut to reinstall everything (replace top nuts, then bottom nuts, then brake line, then strut covers). One tip, you can use an extra jack to raise and lower the wheel hub via the knuckle. This will make it easier to align the wheel hub with the new strut so that you can get the lower bolts back into place.
Torque the lower bolts to 129 ft-lbs.
Torque the upper bolts to 15 ft-lbs.
Repeat on the other side. |
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| Introduction | Front Struts | Rear Struts |
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