Rear Suspension Over Haul Part II: Rear Wheel Bearing, Driveshaft and Rear Subframe Removal.

Here's the tool I used to remove the huge snap ring holding the wheel bearing in the trailing arm. It's a Knipex Internal Snap Ring Pliers. I got it on amazon.  These are the 9" version and they work, but I would suggest getting much larger ones like 12.75" I would say these are a minimum.

And there you have it. Wheel bearings removed! We'll get to installation after all the parts are cleaned up and powdercoated.

Once the trailing arms were off I removed the driveshaft. I held the driveshaft in one place with a crow bar to remove the bolts at the diff output flange and up front at the guibo.

This looks familiar on almost any e36. The transmission blanket has been rubbing up on the diff and guibo for God knows how long. I couldn't remove the whole thing but I cut it back so this wouldn't happen anymore.

With the driveshaft removed we can get a closer look at the flex disc or guibo.

That is a still intact but failed flex disc. The new driveshaft will get a new guibo, CSB and balance check from the driveshaft specialist.

With the driveshaft out of the way we can remove the 4 subframe bolts and drop the whole heap with the trailing arms and differential. It's still quite precarious and heavy. I used a jack but a helper would've been nice.

And this is the, "what have I done to my car," image of the entire rear suspension dropped out of the car. Good news is everything is easier to take apart now.

Taking a look at the subframe bushings you can see they're tired and pretty much gone as well. I see a little 95 imprinted in the bushings. Not uncommon that these would be original still.

Another shot of my 9x20 work space. You do what you have to do living in LA. Garage space doesn't come cheap in areas you would actually want to live.

I took this picture for reference. The arms were labeled "L" and "R" on my car which is a 1995. The long end of the bushing sticks out from the end with the flanged edge of the control arm going up over the bushing receiver. You can see here in the picture there is more metal on the left hand side of the cylinder where the bushing lives. Also the long part points towards the back of the car on installation.

Removed all 5 bushings out of the subframe with some ingenuity. 

And throw all that nasty shit in a bucket with some purple power degreaser to take care of 20 years of road grime. Oh the satisfaction. 

That's a huge difference right there, but these will next hit the sandblaster and take a trip to the powdercoater. But before they go to the powdercoater the rear subframe sway bar attachment need the reinforcement to be welded up.