[Bitter]

As mentioned the sleeve was left on the shock mount bolt, the sleeve needs to come off. A propane or MAP gas torch to heat it and then a pipe wrench to try to twist it will likely get it moving, but yes cutting a slit along it with a dremel cutoff disc and then opening the slit with a hammer and chisel will also work guaranteed. A few decades back my friend and I ran into the same issue with his car replacing the rear shocks. You shouldn't need to remove the whole stud but having it off the car can make it easier to work on if you have a vice mounted to a solid work bench, if not you're better off letting the car hold onto it for you or putting it back on the car to hammer and chisel at it.

 

[Bitter]

Go rent what's called a ball joint press, use it to push a bolt into the broken bolt and push it through the sleeve. You'll probably need a new bushing as the sleeve may get torn out from the bushing. I think Energy and/or Prothane make bushings for the rear upper arms.

 

[Bitter]

A ball joint press will let you use an impact gun to apply several tons of pressure to the bolt and probably push it or the bushing out. C clamp can probably give you 500lbs maybe.

 

[Bitter]

Not a 3G but I went full poly suspension bushings on my Celica and the difference is absolutely worth the work. Steering is laser sharp, zero vagueness. You turn the wheel and that's the line the car does until you've lost tire traction.

The OE bushings are very soft rubber and so the sleeves are bonded to the rubber to keep things kind of in place as the suspension moves around, once that bond is broken the suspension can move in ways it's not intended to move. The poly being so stiff, when it's all compressed during install the sleeves don't really move around except to rotate a little.

 

[Bitter]

You'll get worse ride from the coilovers than from changing the bushings, tires and shocks do more for ride quality than the bushings do. Harder bushings or heim joints just keep everything where it was set during the alignment so your toe, camber, caster don't deflect under load and change handling in potentially undesirable ways. You have a mostly double wishbone rear suspension type on these cars, the wheel more or less moves straight up and down meaning that toe and camber in the rear shouldn't change as the tire goes up and down. Reality is that the OEM bushings compress and deflect and allow camber and toe to change under load whether it be from cornering, braking, accelerating, etc and it changes differently under different loads making handling less predictable. If you changed just the bushings you'd probably feel a difference in ride but the difference in how the D2's handle damping vs the OEM or OE replacement shocks is where you'll drop most of your ride quality.

 

[Bitter]

30 or 36, doesn't matter. Cheap coilovers always don't have any damping change on the first and last 5 or so ticks. I have BC's and in talking to people with BC, Megan, D2, etc they all said the same thing.

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[Bitter]

I have different springs, sways, and curb weight. It doesn't translate.

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