Discussion Forum - Northstar Chevelle Club

Bowtieman427 · Active Member

Rearend swap procedure & order ?

dashboard · 2K+ Club

Invite Derick over for the afternoon, he is the subject mater expert on suspensions and rear ends.

Lost in the 60s · President

Bowtieman427 wrote:

Will be removing a stock 12 bolt in 72 Chevelle and replacing with aftermarket. What is the best procedure an order to remove and reinstall ?
thanks in advance.

Disconnect the emergency brake cables FIRST !!! I've seen many hanging by just them when people think it's ready to drop out...

Then the flex brake hose at frame. If you're retaining the stock brakes to install on the new axle housing, you can leave the hose connected and remove the tubing to axle retainers and backing plates complete and hang them up out of the way. This step eliminates bleeding the brakes later but, of course, requires removal of the axles, which requires removal of the c-clips which you would need to do if re-using the brakes anyway.
THEN I loosen the control arm nuts and attempt to spin the bolt with an impact to get it loose from the inner bushing sleeve. Once you have them all spinning free, get the floor jack under the center and remove the shocks at the axle. Then remove all the control arm bolts while balancing the axle from falling forward/side to side. You can set jack stands under each side and do all the removal too but the input end is STILL gonna rotate down, so it needs support under that too. If everything comes apart nice, it should be on the floor in about an hour.

-- Edited by Lost in the 60s on Thursday 17th of February 2011 01:19:24 PM

seagrams72 · Active Member

Just get it up high enough so you can roll it out the back on a jack. Impact will make quick work of this task. Last rearend I bought I had swapped in an hour with a buddy there to help hold. If you have recently rebuild anything back there your job will be much easier. If you are going with a new housing complete with brakes, just unbolt the lines at the "T" or wherever you prefer, e-brake cables, 4 control arm bolts, shocks, and slide it out.

4-door Chevelle · Super Poster

Yup, what they said. I will be pulling 2 out and putting 1 in about a month from now. Once you get it done you will say, "Wow, that wasn't too bad"!

bowtie · Secretary

I found it easiest to unbolt the upper control arms at the body and leave them on the rr end and unbolt the lowers at the rr end. Actually I can only imagine that since when I rolled the 12 bolt in, I had to finagle the arms in and lining it all up to get bolts through sucked.

Lost in the 60s · President

bowtie wrote:

I found it easiest to unbolt the upper control arms at the body and leave them on the rr end and unbolt the lowers at the rr end. Actually I can only imagine that since when I rolled the 12 bolt in, I had to finagle the arms in and lining it all up to get bolts through sucked.

It's easier to install the arms on the frame first and use a drift punch to line up the bolt holes on the housing ears... wink

bowtie · Secretary

Mine wasn't going to happen like that. After many aatempts, I realized the ears on the arms were interfering with the body of the 12 bolt case. Had to grind to make it fit. Was because I had old SSM upper bars. Newer adjustable arms or factory arms would fit just fine I bet.

John D · 2K+ Club

2nd all, and to add:

Have a few drift punches, a nylon web "ratchet" strap, a prybar or two, a dead blow hammer, and some long 1/4", and 5/16 bolts around.

I usually work solo, and wrestling around 300+ lbs. of iron isn't fun.
I used the drift punches to get the holes "close", then slid either the correct bolt, or a smaller one in to hold it. The ratchet strap came in handy to "pull/twist/persuade/hold" the housing into place until I could give the arms a thump with the dead-blow to line up the holes.

Once I had the 8 bolts in the holes, I went back and either installed the correct ones, or did final torque.