Looking into the fender well

First thing, get the rear of your HHR in the air and support it with jack stands. You'll need the jack free to help compress the coil springs soon. I highly recommend a floor jack for this work, if you don't have one and plan on doing this type of work yourself, bite the bullet and go get one. Second, take the rear wheels off. Hopefully you remembered to loosen the lugs before you jacked up the car. Pictured below is what you'll see with the wheels off. The red arrow is pointing to jack stands which we all use when we climb under a car, right gang? In the green circle is a 10mm bolt that holds the brake line. I took it off so that the brake line wouldn't get stretched, I'm not sure this is a requirement, but better safe than sorry when it's only one bolt in your way. The red circle shows you the bottom 22mm shock bolt. Before removing the shock bolt, I put my floor jack under the rear spring and pumped the handle a few times, just enough to put a little pressure on the springs, this seemed to help with removing the shock bolt. Let the shock hang free. The last thing in the photo, in the blue box is the stock spring, release the jack from the spring, the suspension assembly will extend as far as it can. At this point the springs don't just fall out, but with two hands and a tug, the top of the spring will dislodge. To get the bottom loose I used a crow bar and popped the spring free. The passenger side gives the most room to work in, drivers side your T-924 muffler will be a little in the way. If you still have the stock turtle muffler it will be even more in the way.

 

Thank you to Brian and CJ in Texas for the use of these images and text on this How To project.

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