This time I jacked the back end up pulled the wheels off and attached a come-a-long to the rear hub using a wheel stud then hooked the other end to the front frame near the wishbone mount point. Applying a small forward load on the rear suspension I noticed a significant movement in the front subframe mount of the rear axle... got similar results on the other side. The rubber seem to look ok and there was little or no deflection in any of the pushing/pulling struts, track rods, or spring links ... so i'm going to change out all the sub frame bushings and see what happens. I'm hoping the rubber is just soft with age and that the new rubber is stiffer.

Stefan.