We were doing work on the rear axles (repacking CVs, replacing boots, etc, a job that, for a number of reasons, has dragged on for a while) and seemed to be just about done when we ran into trouble.
Early on, we disconnected the drop links from the sway bar and, in the process, came to realize they (the drop links) needed replaced. In that I needed to order them, my son told me there’s no problem temporarily driving the car without the rear sway, we could finish up the current project and wait for the replacements to come in to do them later. So we went ahead and totally removed them (sway bar and drop links).
We lowered the car (it’s on a lift) to allow us to place and tighten a new axle nut on each side, and later again to try to adjust things a bit so that, hopefully, the chassis reinforcement plate would slip back over the studs (it was giving us trouble when the car was in the air).
In the process something unexpected happened. Neither my son nor I realized that the upper bolt on the drop link is responsible for holding/pinching together the part of the wheel carrier that the strut slides through. So, of course, with the bolt out and us raising and lowering the car as described, this happened (see the shiny, previously unexposed metal of the strut?):
Anybody have a suggestion as the least-difficult method of sliding that strut up the ½” or so that it needs to go to be able to re-insert the bolt? Ie, (hopefully) some approach that minimizes what we have to take apart to accomplish that?