I jacked up the front end and supported the car with jack stands. Once secure, I climbed under and removed the idler arm and tie rods. Once I got those out of the way I removed the tires and drums. Then I removed the backing plates as a whole so I did not have to unhook the brake lines. I will also clean up and paint the wheel parts.
Let me back up for a minute. I did not actually get the idler arm all the way off as the main bolt on top of the cross member would not come all the way out without first lowering the cross member. The engine mount was in the way of removing it. I had debated ion leaving the cross member in but this kind of sealed the deal.
Now I was 16 bolts away from dropping the whole unit out. This was a major pain. I started by making sure all of the bolts would break loose before actually removing any. One or two on the inside tried to round off but I got them out eventually. It is really hard to get anything but a wrench in the tight spaces. The outer bolts were all loose except the rear passenger side. these where tight, tried to round off and where very hard to get at. It was now 1:00 AM Saturday and I was not going to wait until a nights sleep to reap the rewards of my labor. I put the jack under it and made the last turns to set it free. Dropped it down and slid it out.
Today I mainly cleaned some more of the gunk off of it and inspected parts. I picked up some threaded rod to help me compress the springs and I will start taking it apart tomorrow.
It looks like my other shock mount is broken as well. I will either repair or replace this. EDIT: I ordered two new ones and replaced them both.
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