Repair necessitated removal of my rear axle on our "02 Z71. Jiggling the pumpkin on a floor jack, I reinstalled every bar I'd removed with the nuts fingertight. Went flawlessly...right up until I had no idea the torque settings NOR THE ANGLE.
I can raise and lower the axle in a slight arc by pumping or slowly releasing my jack, and it appears to travel a good 18 inches up and down along this arc. I pre-measured nothing to establish reinstallation landmarks, feel like an idot, and dont know what to do short of sneaking on a used car lot to measure the distance from a stock 2002 pumkin, its axle, or those ginormous horizontal bars ...to the ground. (I'm way too old, fat, and broken to be pulling a stunt like that).
Second issue I can't figure, but feel as if I brought on myself: I replaced the stock Bilsteins (a 1.97"" cylinder) with Ranchos (2.27" cylinder) all the way around. On the front, the bracket with the bump stop prevents me from installing the shock upper bolt into the top shock mount. Clang. Clang. Clang. Can't even get it through the hole, much less centered in it. It's too late to return the shocks for Bilsteins. So the obvious quick fix is to shave away some inch or so of the bump stop bracket, using a cutting wheel and air hammer. But that doesn't explain why that bracket already had a rubbed-away indentation from the Bilsteins. Is it just some design oops by Chevy engineers, or does anyone out there know what part I might have damaged in some pothole a decade ago?
Thanks for any suggestions, dimensions, or torque specs you all might have lying around in the glovebox
I can raise and lower the axle in a slight arc by pumping or slowly releasing my jack, and it appears to travel a good 18 inches up and down along this arc. I pre-measured nothing to establish reinstallation landmarks, feel like an idot, and dont know what to do short of sneaking on a used car lot to measure the distance from a stock 2002 pumkin, its axle, or those ginormous horizontal bars ...to the ground. (I'm way too old, fat, and broken to be pulling a stunt like that).
Second issue I can't figure, but feel as if I brought on myself: I replaced the stock Bilsteins (a 1.97"" cylinder) with Ranchos (2.27" cylinder) all the way around. On the front, the bracket with the bump stop prevents me from installing the shock upper bolt into the top shock mount. Clang. Clang. Clang. Can't even get it through the hole, much less centered in it. It's too late to return the shocks for Bilsteins. So the obvious quick fix is to shave away some inch or so of the bump stop bracket, using a cutting wheel and air hammer. But that doesn't explain why that bracket already had a rubbed-away indentation from the Bilsteins. Is it just some design oops by Chevy engineers, or does anyone out there know what part I might have damaged in some pothole a decade ago?
Thanks for any suggestions, dimensions, or torque specs you all might have lying around in the glovebox