I started fitting my 50mm lift kit this morning and ran into a couple of problems. Because of the shape the car was in the garage I started at the back, I had read somewhere the rears were more difficult to fit and OMG what a pain. It isn't difficult as you only need to remove the two clamp bolts on at the bottom of the strut and the three nuts at the top but the issue is the metal brake pipe which is clamped through the bracket at the back of the strut. To get the strut out (unless someone knows different) you need to release one end of this pipe and doing so without breaking it is a trick I haven't learnt. So once I realised it wasn't coming out in one piece I just kept going but it wasn't pretty, the pipe was screwed.
Once the brake pipe was out of the way and a suitable container placed to catch the drips, my recently purchased 30" breaker bar cracked the bolts easily and with the bolts out the strut came out easily. It only took a few minutes to fit the 50mm lift and refit the strut.
BTW, top tip, trying to locate the bolt holes in the strut tower is almost impossible from below so get the strut in approx the right position and go inside the car. It is easy to pull them into position from inside. Once that was done I made a new brake pipe and screwed it in. Thankfully I have a couple of brake pipe tools so it was an easy job.
This is it fitted
Yeah I can't see much either but honest it is in there out of site at the top. BTW the hub was loose so I took it off to clean it up and will paint it black.
So that was the easy side done.
I did the OS this evening and unfortunately found I have a leaky brake pipe so it looks like I need to fit a new brake pipe to the front of the car.
I haven't traced it yet but will do that tomorrow, at least I have the other rear lift fitted and a new 10" brake pipe ready to go for the connection to the wheel hub.
While in the OS wheel arch I found this connector and what looks like an earth connection.
Anybody know what they are for and is it possible the earth not being connected might be the cause of the HDC and TC warning lights coming on intermittently?