[HO455]

OK now back to our regularly scheduled repairs. After the removal of the wood yesterday and a bit of clean up I began the suspension part of the project.
The factory track bar needed to be replaced due to the usual issues involving lowering. I purchased an Super Track Bar from Early Chevy last winter and I can't think of a better time to install it. First off I jacked the truck up and put it on jack stands. The stands were placed under the trailing arms as the rear end would have to moved around to install the components. I had hit the U bolts with penetrating oil the night before to help get things off easier. Never the less I broke out the 1/2" bad boy impact to hurry things along. Good thing I did, as three of the four nuts fought a bit, but one of them flat out laughed at my 600 ft impact wrench. Time to get serious and apply some heat with the Mapp gas torch. A couple minutes of heat and bingo the last one spun right off. Tapping the U-bolts was went easy on one side but one bolt took some more oil and a bigger hammer before it moved. I'm pretty sure that the rear end was replaced with a junk yard special when they converted to five lug wheels. The track bar mount on the axle is damaged (Photo #1) and I can see no evidence that it hit any where on this truck.
The Super Track bar is a longer bar that comes with a new mount for the passenger side. This mount is sandwiched between the top of the trailing arm and bottom of the axle mounting pad. ( Photo #2) There is a spacer for the driver's side to make things sit the same. (Photo #3 See green arrow) As you can see in the photos the kit also provides new U-bolts. Now the fun begins. Torquing the nuts to the 225 ft lbs required. I knew there was a reason I had the torque wrench calibration check last winter. Man I remember years back torquing dozens of head bolts to 200+ pounds in a day. Now doing 4 bolts almost about did me in. I must have gotten old.
The only niggling item about the kit is there are too many threads sticking out of the nuts on the U-bolts. (Sorry I didn't get a photo but will try to tomorrow.) After a couple if hundred miles when the retorquing has been completed I will jump under the rear and cut them shorter.