I think we can all agree the brush job was actually really good! I wax oiled inside the panels and down the chassis legs areas for extra protection.
I got the rear axle, AST,s and bits taken home and started building the axle up.
I greased the black polybushes up with the supplied lube and pushed them in to place, I then blocked off the ends of the axle with aluminium tape.
I tried to fit the axle on my own but I was going to scratch it so roped in a glamorous assistant to help which made it alot easier. I was using my brand new 12.9 grade nuts and bolts with correct sized washers from Orbital Fastners with lashing of ACF50 for corrosion protection.
Looking good, it's at this point I noticed I had forgotten to drill out and tap the fuel tank bolts I had snapped when removing it. But I called it a night to leave for the next day.
The offending bolts..
I started by centre punching the studs, used a 3mm drill bit with plenty of lubricant and a slow/medium drill speed so I didnt burn the bit out. Once drilled through I moved up to 4mm, 5mm, 5.5mm then taped the treads out. Simples
Next, I had the waxoil gun sat in the sun whilst I drill the studs out this was to warm it up and make it nice and runny so I could really spray it liberally on to the inside of the axle arms using the 360° spray nozzle.
Again trying to stop corrosion.
I then inboxed the beautiful AST 5100's ready to fit. I stripped them down in terms of removing the springs and top cup. This is so I could get to the strut body and coat them in ACF50 properly making sure I moved the platform nuts to be able to get all the treads coated.
Built them back up and mounted them to the axle with my nice new bolts.
Again I used aluminium tape to block the axle hole off. Looking very professional now, the springs are very close to the chassis but I'm sure AST know what they are doing.
On to the top mounts, I've got black series bushes to fit but I found out I had a slight problem. The standard top mount washer is smaller than the Polubush one. For a normal clio this isnt a problem but for a weld in cage clio linked to the suspension top mount where the Bush sits inside the cage the washer and Bush was too big to fit inside the cage tubing.
So to over come this I used a Stanley knife to cut the excess off the polybush then used a belt sander to finish it off nice, smooth and even. I used the original washer which fits inside the top cup of the cage and hey presto it now fits. But.... at this point I realised AST dont supply a top nut for the rear struts. It's also a funny size at 9mmx1mm thread. Quick ebay search brought up some push bike nuts the right size so ordered them. Came the next day fitted them and torqued up all the bolts so far.