I'm going to replace all four shocks. Front's look very easy. Rear looks like a major pita between removing the seats and rear shelf. Any tips?

 

I did mine last weekend. Your right the front was easy. The rears we more of a pain. I only removed the seat back to do mine. all i did was take a 10mm socket and remove the one bolt under the armrest passenger side middle(just shine a flashlight between the top and bottom)sort of near the middle the seat buckle. you might want to cover the seat bottom so you don't scratch it taking the back off and putting the back, back on. And two bolts behind the headrest. Those are directly behind the headrest there will be a slit you just stick it in and loosen maybe like 5 or 6 turns and then pull up on the seat back, you don't have to fully remove those bolts and it should come out. You might need someone to help with taking out and putting in the rears. When you do the rears don't take off the bolt in the middle the one that sticks up the most on top of the shocks. I did that by accident. Thankfully it didn't cause a problem. It's not really as hard as it seems. You just gotta make sure you line everything up on the shocks to make sure it will go back in right so you don't have to go back and re-position them. I would keep a rubber mallet handy and something to pry with. and make sure when you do the rear you have a floor jack to help you when you have to put the rear suspension back together to help with positioning. depending on your interior color, if you get happen to get dirt and grease all over the place, some all purpose cleaner(just a little and water) will do the trick.

 

Thanks for the tips! Service manual (helms) says you need to remove the rear shelf too; is that not the case?

 

Ditto on the tips...I am looking to install an aspec suspension kit on my 06 and had planned on removing both the seat bottom and deck, so i like to hear that it's possible to access the bolts without removing these pieces. Did you just detach just a portion of the deck to gain access to the shock bolt?

 

my a-spec instructions wanted me to remove the rear shelf and the c-pillar trim. i did it without touching either. you just need the right combination of short and tall sockets, adapters, and torque wrenches to get in on top of the nuts without removing anything. it was really no problem at all. of course if all that stuff was removed, it would certainly be easier to get at the bolts, but there is no way it is worth it. screwing around with the rear seat is enough of a headache.

 

nothing at all except headrests, seat back and seat cushion. leave the deck alone.

 

I wasn't going to remove the rear deck, but really, it was super easy and made my life easier when doing my Tein SS install. Just remove the rear deck.

 

You can if you want to. That is just the way i did it. It will definitely be easier if you do. But on the other hand it is not necessary to remove it because it is not hard if you don't. I did just fine without removing mines. And I'm sure you will too. It's your call.

 

No i didn't touch the deck really. Everything is visible once you remove the seat back. you'll just have to use your fingers to place the nuts when you put the nuts on that are on the back part of the top hat i think that's what it's called. It's 1 bolt to take out and 2 to loosen up and bam the seat back is out. Then you can just start removing the shocks. If you wanna take the deck out that is up to you.

 

I was going to follow it step by step in the beginning but i saw that i could access everything without doing it and just said forget it.

 

I can't remember exactly what I did but it was pretty easy overall. The hardest thing for me was getting the airbag plus on the side to pop back in