How to Replace Rear Strut Assembly 2010-15 Chevy Camaro

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In this video, we're going to be working with our 2011 Chevy Camaro. We're going to show you how to remove and replace your vehicle's rear strut or spring and shock assembly.

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Here are the items you'll need for this repair: 14-22mm socket, ratchet, socket extension, 14-22mm wrench, 5mm allen wrench, torque wrench, breaker bar, hammer, pry bar, angle gauge, jack, jack stands

Loosen all of your lug nuts with a 22mm socket and a breaker bar or a long ratchet. Raise and support your vehicle. We're using a lift to make it easier to show you what's going on, but this job can easily be performed at home with a jack and jack stands. Finish removing all of your lug nuts. You should be able to do this by hand now, but you can use a 22mm socket and ratchet if necessary. Remove your wheel and tire.

After removing your wheel and tire, we'll undo one end of our sway bar link. This will allow us to droop the rear control arm down and get the strut out easier. You'll want to use a 15mm wrench and 5mm Allen, which goes inside the middle of the sway bar link to hold the stud in place, and we'll loosen up the nut. Remove the nut and then slide the sway bar link out of the opening.

Using an 18mm wrench and an 18mm socket and breaker bar, we'll loosen the bolt connecting our lower control arm to the steering knuckle. Once we get it loose, we'll use the socket and ratchet to remove it fully. Once the nut is off, an easy way to remove these types of bolts is to put a wrench behind the hex on the nut and use your 18mm socket while pulling out to remove the bolt. Using a 21mm wrench and a 21mm socket and breaker bar, we'll also loosen the bottom strut bolt, and again, once we get that loose, we'll switch to a socket and ratchet.

We'll now remove the four 15mm bolts securing the strut onto the bottom of the vehicle. Now, that last one there, the front inside, is going to be a little difficult to get out, so remove the other three first with some extensions, a 15mm socket, and a breaker bar. We're going to switch to a smaller socket and ratchet to do the last two bolts, just because they're a little tricky to get at. They're not terrible, but you do need something thinner than the 1/2 inch drive we were using to get them out. Once the top of the strut is unbolted, pull down on the control arm until you have sufficient space, and then you just got to find the right angle to get it out, and remove your strut from the vehicle.

Reinstall your strut and start your 15mm bolts by hand. Line up your bottom strut bolt now. You'll notice we didn't tighten the upper bolts yet, and the reason for this is because they do have a little bit of a slotted adjustment to them. So, on anything that's adjustable, I like to make sure that I have all the other pieces aligned before tightening it down because we may have had it twisted one way or another, and then it would have been tough to put this bolt in. You have to go back, loosen the hardware. It's easier to just get everything fit by hand to start and you can tighten everything down once you know it's all where it needs to be.

We'll also install the lower control arm to knuckle bolt while we're here. You got to pull down and push out at the bottom. Just be careful of your fingers when you do this. Use a pry bar if you need to. Then we'll go ahead and get the 18 and 21 mm bolts down snug with a socket and ratchet, but we don't want to tighten them at all until we have the load of our vehicle on the suspension.

We're using a screw jack to load up the suspension because our vehicle is on a lift. However, if you're doing this at home on a jack and jack stands, this can be done just the same way with your regular hydraulic floor jack. Just want to get some weight on there and then we'll torque the lower shock bolt to 59 foot-pounds. Then set up our torque angle gauge and add 120 degrees. We'll then torque a lower control arm bolt at the knuckle to 30 foot-pounds followed by an additional 120 as well.

You can then remove the weight of your vehicle from the suspension. Sometimes when you do this, you'll actually lift the body of the vehicle slightly, so be sure that your lift arms didn't move or your jack stands, depending on what you're using. Torque the upper strut bolts to 43 foot-pounds. We'll do two at the back the same way we removed them, with extensions, and then we'll lower the car down some and attach the front two bolts with the shorter socket. These don't need to be done with the weight of the suspension on the vehicle, because the only reason we do that is to put preload on the bushings, so the bushings and the suspension are nice and straight at ride height as opposed to tightening them at full drop like this, and then twisting them, and loading them up when we put weight on the vehicle. We use our shorter socket to torque the front two bolts to 43 foot-pounds as well.

Reinstall the sway bar link into the lower control arm. Reinstall the 15 mm nut. Once again, we'll counter hold with a 5 mm Allen and if you have a ratcheting wrench, you're best off to use that, otherwise you can just get by with a regular wrench. Reinstall your wheel and tire, and get all five of your 22 mm lug nuts on as tight as you can by hand. Torque your lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds in a cross pattern.

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How to Replace Rear Strut Assembly 2010-15 Chevy Camaro

step 1 :Removing the Wheel

step 2 :Removing the Rear Strut Assembly

step 3 :Installing the Rear Strut Assembly

step 4 :Reattaching the Wheel

Tools needed

Use the TowHaul Button on Your Truck for Better Performance

How to Replace Rear Strut Assembly 2010-15 Chevy Camaro

step 1 :Removing the Wheel 0:46

step 2 :Removing the Rear Strut Assembly 1:16

step 3 :Installing the Rear Strut Assembly 3:45

step 4 :Reattaching the Wheel 8:21

Tools needed

Use the TowHaul Button on Your Truck for Better Performance

step 1 :Removing the Wheel

step 2 :Removing the Rear Strut Assembly

step 3 :Installing the Rear Strut Assembly

step 4 :Reattaching the Wheel