Hi
I have been helping a friend with his 88 740 sedan. We got it running, and he was finally able to drive it. He was going home the other day and all of a sudden the drive shaft started rubbing against the body. He stopped and had the car towed home. After examining the rear suspension it appears the bolt that went through a very large rubber bushing had came unscrewed. The bushing was attached to a rod assembly that pushed in and out of another bushing that was further foward towards the front of the car. There was another like assembly on the other side of the car. I believe these are called the torque rods. Anyway the axle had twisted up so that the drive shaft was no longer inline. The bolt is still through one side of the axle bracket. It is skewed on an angle and cannot be removed. Has anyone removed the whole rod assembly? How hard is it to remove and put back? Any pointers would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance
Brad

I've done it. Something like this happened last year on a 88 wagon that we put a rear axle in. The girl who owned it admitted something like "well I kind of jumped the car over the highway"....
Hmmm.
In any case, similar problem, a bolt came unscrewed, and under serious suspension travel pulled itself out, got jammed at an angle, and trapped by one of the torque rods. The torque rod bushing-mount-carrier-frame-thing up over the axle got pulled just about out of its own bushings and the whole thing was tweaked at a strange angle.

The axle was bound up with the pinion shaft pointing high, and the driveshaft u-joint binding. Went wump wump wump at 25mph; at 50 it would shut up. Kinda scary.

The fix: you have to get the trapped bolt out of the torque arm and get it all back the way it's supposed to be. I torqued the axle up using wood blocks and a floor jack, while I had the rear of the car on ramps to work under it. I needed to push it further in the wrong direction to get the bolt to release. Then, with the bolt out, and ME out from under the car, put it in reverse and hold the engine against the brake a little, to twist the axle back to where it belonged. The carrier frame popped back into place, and the torque rod pretty much lined up with the holes. You may or may not get as lucky as we did. Once it popped back in, everything lined up fine, and seems ok to this day (going on 6 months now.)

The bolt required a bit of work to get back in place, and if the end is damaged, you'll need a new one (M12 thread I think, match it up at the hardware store or get one off a junkyard car).

An alternative could be to turn the axle housing a bit using a large pipe wrench- the whole unit can twist around the axle centerline quite a lot, so you should be able to line it up to get the bolt back in. The bolt holes are tapped into the differential body, and hopefully nothing happened to those threads. If they're damaged or the bolt broke, that's a whole different bunch of work. Don't ask why I know this. Suffice it to say, that's why I own a set of Cobalt drill bits.

Good luck with it!
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Rob Bareiss, New London CT ::: Roterande Fläkt Och Drivremmar!