Camaro Rebuild Journal

The "new" axle was in a bad state when it eventually arrived in Blighty. First order of business was to check that the LSD mechanism, differential and brakes were in good working order.

This was all done by Ian of Speedworks. He found that the LSD and diff were fine, but the brakes were completely shot and need replacing. So prior fitting the new axle has been shot-blasted, resprayed (black VHT rust-proof paint) and had new slave cylinders fitted. A new set of brake shoes, drums and all necessary paraphenalia were also going to be fitted. For extra giggles, one of the wheel studs had snapped, so as a precaution all five on that side where changed, and new wheel nuts sourced.

Note: unfortunately all of the pictures in this section were taken with phone cameras, so I apologise for the quality etc.

And so to the fitting. As ever, we had chosen a cold day with a forecast showing snow to actually change the axle, but what the hell, we're 'ard. Or something.
With the car on solid, level-ish ground, chock the front wheels and jack the rear of the car up to a height where you can comfortably get a pair of axle stands under the rear sub-frames. Then gently let the car down, but keep the jack under the diff for safety sake. Whip the rear wheels off, and place them under the car in front of the jack " just in case".

Then apply a mechanic to the problem:

To remove the axle, start by undoing the four prop-shaft bolts and move the prop-shaft to one side. Then the tricky bit. we had to reuse the brake metering block, or splitter that takes the single brake line and splits it in two to feed the rear brakes. This is held to the axle by a metal bracket and an bolt. As expected the bolt was rusted solid to the bracket, so we hacksawed it off. The reason for this was down to the new axle brake block being mangled and unusable.

With the brake block diconnected, and the brake lines detached from the block, the bolts holding the axle to the leaf springs can be undone. Unlike my other car, the Camaro only has one U-bolt per side, and two flat topped bolts per side.

Wacky.

Anyhoo, once these bolts are undone, you can put another jack under the axle and raise it off the leaf springs. With a bit of jiggling, you can get the axle out and free of the car.

With the exception of the brake pipe that needed to be made, "refitting is the reverse of removal", or so the Great Book of Lies says. The thing to watch out for are the U-bolts, these are a pain in the arse to get re-located, but once in, the rest of the process is kinda easy. Remember, it is best to tighten the axle bolts in a corss-pattern to ensure even pressure before final tightening. The hardest part about refitting was fitting the new brake shoes. As I said earlier, there are more springs than other components on the car, as evidenced below.