Finishing the back axle & suspension

Two Team Trackbitch members met 10 days later, the target was to finish off the rear end and get the car off the axle stands. We'd managed to attach the axle successfully 10 days ago so all that we had to do today was remove the old knackered shocks, fit the new shocks, reattach the brake lines, handbrake cables and bleed the brakes.

Getting the old shocks off was a bit of a pig but after lots of WD40 they both came off, it was only after removing the shocks did we realise how buggered the rear suspension had actually been, when you compressed the shock it would take forever for them to rebound. We were fitting perhaps the best shocks that were available for the Renault 5 -  GAZ fully adjustables for a bargain price of £94. After a bit of fear of crossing threads the new shocks were on and torqued up.

Picture below shows old and new shocks side by side.

Next up was attaching hand brake cables and brake lines, again this went to plan without too much pain, a quick bleed of the brakes and our rear end was finally finished. Wheels were attached and the Renault 5 was finally looking normal again. It appeared that our new rear axle was set to standard ride height so the transformation was quite dramatic (shown in the before and after pictures below).

BEFORE - lowered to death

AFTER - standard ride height

So, the back end was complete, all that was left to do now was fit the turbo.