Unverified Ownership The Whambulance

Notes:
Monroe 65409 (rear shocks - perished bushings) - Rockauto $61
Goodyear 578-92-3-309 bellows. Possibly 2B12-309 (rear air springs) - Somewhere? Around $100? Call around for these, they're apparently expensive as hell to ship.

Brake pads looked kind of ridiculously beefy.

Gotta pull an airbag tomorrow. It's the only way to be sure what it is....
 
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This may be a problem. It's a removable bracket but parts sourcing on these is a "find the paper book" affair. It's too hefty for me to weld.

Also, I can't safely do the air bags in this spot. I'm gonna have to outsource both of those items and the cost is probably going to be formidable.
 

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Bad news. Gonna have to suspend this project. Out of time to do it, and costs are mounting.

Why?

Well, I went to bleed the brakes. Step 1 was making sure all the bleed valves moved. Naturally, I snapped one off straight away. Gonna have to take that caliper off and drill that out.

Second, When I went to do the passenger rear caliper, the caliper moved. Uh oh.
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Turns out, these calipers are retained to the bracket by a little clip, which is secured from falling out by the world's tiniest screw:
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I don't quite get how it works, and I couldn't get the caliper all the way off with some not-terribly-determined wiggling, but it apparently does.

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That little clip belongs right there, and that screw belongs in that little divot.

There are some witness marks on the wheel and on the caliper that suggest they in fact touched.

Removing the bracket to drill it requires disassembling most of the rear axle as far as I can tell.
I don't want to drill the bracket in situ without knowing I can get a new bracket.

Yeah, it's an inert hunk of cast iron, and there's even a convenient spot in the retainer dingus for me to bung my very own hole instead of even bothering with the original, and that's probably what I'll end up doing. But not until I can validate that it isn't some piece of irreplaceable unobtanium.


So I'll pick this up after the rally. Now to scramble around and try to make Plan B happen. Or Plan C.
 
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Here's the procedure for getting to the caliper bracket mounts (also, changing the rotors. And wheel bearings.)
 
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