Hi folks

Have to remove rear subframe from mk3 Mondeo on Wednesday to replace mounting bushes with poly and also drill and tap roll bar bracket bolts that broke trying to remove them.

Can anyone advise on how the bolts attaching the track arms to the hubs will come off ie do they normally rust in and also the subframe mounting bolts. We intend dropping the subframe out to replace the bushes is this all it needs undoing? 8 fasteners in total leaving hubs etc in situ.

Any advice gratefully accepted.

Cheers

Disconnecting the arms from the hubs is actually very easy and I've never had any problems with rust on the ones I've done. The bolts have still had a shiny zinc colour to them when removed.

Never dropped the subframe down but it does look simple enough. The exhaust is just 2 nuts and a few hangers.

when you do remove the rear subframe you will see 2 holes in subframe that line up with body, while apart make up 2 pegs of sorts so you can line subframe up when bolting back up with the 4 bolts, if you dont then subframe wont be square to body and vehicle will crab down the road.

normally the bolts undo ok,

when ive done bushes all i undo is the inner arm adjuster bolts leaving the 4 arms still attatched to the wheel hubs, lifting subframe over arms then out, undo the exhaust hangers letting exhaust dangle down,

but doing it that way does require rear tracking adjustment.

i make a note of postion of the adjustable bolts first and adjust to same position, then im near the right setting ready for final checking and adjusting

Well got it done. All 8 bolts came out ok,4 sub-frame bolts and 4 track arm bolts on the hubs. Got it all off and burn't out the old rubber bushes and cleaned up the metal bush casings and pushed in the poly bushes with plenty of copa-slip.Then pushed in the alloy sleeves again with c/slip. heli-coiled the subframe for the roll bar bracket bolts along with new bushes.

Assembled it all back with alignment tool and tested.All good and believe it or not it is a lot smoother with the poly bushes than the old rubber ones. See how things go.

All in all well impressed,took about 3 hrs all told at the local garage.