Rear Rubber Bump Stops

Whilst on a now forgotten mission,crawling around under the BB, I noticed that there were no rear bump stops. Never fear, buy a couple and proceed to install. Bugger, won't go on by hand. Oh well, look for advice on the internet, and get this:- “ Jack the car up so that the rear axles hangs down. Place rubber stop onto the spigot its meant to go on, with rubber friendly lube, fit a lump of wood between the rubber and the axle and lower, so that the weight of the car pushes the rubber onto the spigot. Leave for a while (overnight for me)”. Haa!. All that did was to make an indentation in the rubber. Visual investigation showed that the inside diameter of the rubber was tapered, with the top end about the same diameter as the spigot head and the bottom smaller. A lot of head scratching, as I can't pull any more hair out. I decided that I need some way to splay the end of the rubber to fit over the head of the spigot, but how? A cone would do it, so I came up with a design and John kindly turned it up for me.

The recess on the top is to fit over the spigot's head so that it stays in place, once pressure is applied, and the threaded hole is so that it can, hopefully, be extracted, from the stop, later. The metal strap is the extraction tool, which goes around the axle, being very careful to not wrap it around the brake line.

All the tools required:

Starting fitting the rubber stop:
As shown in the photo, the cone is fitted over the head of the spigot, with plenty of rubber friendly lube, the stop is started on the small end of the cone and the wooden block is inserted between the stop and the axle.

The stop almost in place:
Slowly lower the car, and lo and behold, the stop starts to move along the cone. Once the stop is at the end of the cone, lower the axle again, remove the wooden block and give the stop a quick twist to ensure that the stop is properly seated. Now we need to remove the cone from the stop. This is where the tapped hole comes into play.

Jack the axle up again, and because the cone is flopping around rather loosely, it is easier to fit a stud, then the strapping and nut, because you can grab the stud, with pliers, rather than trying to use a bolt. MAKE SURE THAT THE STRAPPING IS NOT AROUND THE BRAKE LINE! Now lower the axle and POP the cone is out. Repeat on the other side.