How To Replace Rear Shock 1992-99 GMC K1500

Okay, so we have removed the wheel just so we have a little bit more room to work. You don't necessarily have to.

One of the first things we're going to do is remove these 13-milimeter headed nuts. If you were to feel on the backside, you're also going to feel a 13-millimeter headed bolt end on the other side. So, we'll first get our socket on there. You might need to bonk it on there a couple times. Obviously, I have a lot of rust on mine. I've got my 13-millimeter wrench, put it up there. Let's see about removing this. Now we'll just do the same to the other one. Get that bolt out of there.

Now we're going to remove the lower bolt right here, using an 18 on this side and a 21-millimeter on the nut side. There we are. Take this right out of here.

Now it's going to be time to compress the rear shock. You want to compress it at least three to five times to activate the gases inside. We'll get this strap right off of here, let it completely decompress, and then recompress it, like I said, three to five times.

Time to get the shock in here. I'm just going to go ahead and line it up, kind of where it's going to go, and put my bolt through. The bolt is going come through from the center. Slide it right through like that. Then, you have your emergency brake cable. Make sure you get that on there the way it's supposed to go. Next is going to be the washer, and then the nut. Perfect.

So, the next thing we need to do is jack up the rear differential so we can bring the shock up to where it's going to mount into the mounting frame. All right, that's pretty close. I'm going to leave that just like that and grab my new bolts. Okay, let's snug them up.

Let's snug up this lower bolt. Make sure your emergency brake bracket is where it's supposed to be. This looks good.

Get our wrench up there. Let's torque this to 13 foot-pounds. That feels good. And do the same to the other one. Let's torque this bottom bolt to 74 foot-pounds. Torqued.

Let's get this out of here. If you did happen to remove the wheel, just go ahead and replace it, and then torque it to 120 foot-pounds.