Factory service manual says to compress rear leaf spring with special tool, is this necessary to pull rear shocks? Thanks...T

You will want to have a jack, and 2 jack stands. I normally just put the 1st jack stand under the dead middle of the rear sping. My car has this 1/4 inch steel metal plate there and supports the car well. Then you want to put a jack under the knuckle for which ever strut you are working on, and place the other jackstand inbetween the center jackstand, and the jack. This is just in case your jack slips, it wont cause you any harm. Now while the jack supports the knuckle assembly, you can remove the upper and lower strut bolts, then just lower your jack about 2 inchs (no more). and remove your old strut and replace. Make sure to replace the upper strut mount, parts availble thru Advanced Auto Parts.

the upper strut mounts? we didnt know about those. what are they like rubber mounts or something on the rear struts?

I guess it is. They only cost about 30 bucks per side. And is also the bump stop. Which as any w-body member can tell you, the monoleaf suspension sucks, and most of the time looks like its saggin...

actually, the bump stop is integrated into the strut boot IIRC.  my original and new KYB strut mounts do not have bump stops incorporated into them.

be sure to spray down the upper strut bolts with liquid wrench really good before trying to remove them and use some anti-seize when putting them back in.  one of the upper bolts broke on me :bash: so i'm basically screwed until i get it drilled out.  if i can't get it out i don't know what i'll do.  my car has been sitting over a month now because of a rear strut replacement job gone horribly wrong.  the lower strut bolts were so stuck that i needed a big sledge to pound them out and i think i might have bent the knuckles in the process.  then the coilover sleeves won't come off the old struts so i need to drop another $350 on new coilovers.  damn cars  :laugh: