This is a 66 Charger, it has leaf springs. We're going to fix it.
Hi I'm Steve here at QA1 with Damien Brase. Today we have a 66 Charger that we're going to be
disassembling the rear suspension in preparation for a whole new suspension. What are we going
to be taking out today Damien? Leaf springs shock shock mounts axle. It's all coming out. Gas tank.
We're gonna take the gas tank out because we're gonna be doing a little bit of welding. Oh fun.
We'll get that out of our way. All right well I can't wait so let's get started on this and
we'll show you what we're up to. Well we're under the car now we're gonna look at what we have to
do to get this rear axle out of here. We're gonna go with some of the easier stuff first. Damien
what are you working on yet? I'm gonna pull the driveshaft out get that out of the way
brake hoses shocks. Yeah and then I think we're onto the leaf springs. Pretty much.
This car has the classic one-piece exhaust so I think we're going to try to pull the differential
and the axle all out before we get into that. Here we go.
Well we're at the point in the show where we're about ready to pull this thing out of here.
Yep we got the driveshaft out brake lines unhooked shocks out leaf spring shackles are loose.
Hanger brackets are loosened up. So we just got to finish pulling those things out. So we lower
it down leave all this on the ground. Safety. And be careful with the leaf springs anytime
you're working around springs contain that energy and we will do that with the ground. Here we go.
Well the last thing we had to do before we're nice and clean here is drop the gas tank out of the car.
It had a little bit more than we thought it did. So be careful on that. Good tips 2020 hindsight?
Great tip 2020 hindsight. Yeah. So now we have more gas on the floor than we thought
we were going to. It's going to clean the floor though. It it's doing a great job already. Nice.
Well we got the rear suspension out exhaust off shocks leafs driveshaft gas tank.
Fuel tank's out made a big mess on the floor. Oh yeah try not to do that. Yeah but it's five o'clock.
Oh man I gotta go. We gotta go. We'll see you tomorrow. We're back out in
the garage today with the 66 Charger in preparation for the rear suspension we're
going to be putting in. Yesterday we got the axle and everything torn out.
We wanted to make sure that all of our brake lines fuel lines are all out of the way
because the basis of this kit will be this cross member which does get welded in. So we've got to
set that up in there clamp it to the frame rails. Mark our holes get everything cleaned up just make
sure that we're going to get some good penetration on on the frame rails and then we'll weld it in.
We're at the point in the installation where we've prepped the frame rails it needed just
a little couple tappy taps to get this nice and snug fit up in there you'll see on the
on the cross member there's two notches those will line up with the two bolts in the bump
stops. We've got some weld through primer on there. Damien about to show us your your handiwork with
the welder so we'll get that up in there. Let's place it and burn it in. Yeah. Yeah here we go.
It's time to get the leaf springs off the axle so we can start getting the link
suspension on the new brackets. There's a couple ways to do that we can use the
impact and unthread the u-bolts or Steve's got the way that works every time. All the time.
Drag race? Good old drag race. I'll give you the hit. All right I'm gonna lose but we'll try it.
Okay I'm staged. Okay.
Go!
Next thing we're going to install are the axle mounts. These are going to
be where our trailing arm attaches as well as our shock mount. Adjustable shock mount I might add.
This has a dowel pin which locates in the center hole right there and then we put our u-brackets on.
Well Damien we've got the cross member in. It is looking profesh. That is a nice paint job
Steve. I like it and we've got the trailing arm brackets on yep front link brackets are in. Those
are bolted in the factory leaf spring location. We're ready to hang some trailing arms. Yeah
We've got the axle brackets on so we'll hang these. Where are we going after that? We're getting close
to putting this axle up in the car and making our ride height adjustments getting that mocked up and
then we can get the upper shock mounts burned on. So in order we're going to hang the trailing arm
hang the axle with the shocks yep and then we'll lock it in place.
Get the trailing arms bolted onto the cross member with the mounting tabs that we need to
mount on the axle and we need to weld on the axle so. All right well we're almost there. Here we go.
Well we've got the upper trailing arm assembled and this will come with the two axle brackets
that we'll need to weld to the axle once we have it all set in place but a really cool innovative
piece is this 3D printed bracket or brace if you will that sits right in there. So while you're
installing everything it keeps everything square and when you're done you use as a Barbie chair.
Part of the mock-up process on this rear axle we're going to hang it from the
shocks and the trailing arms so that we could figure out the position of where
our axle brackets need to be welded on. To do that we're going to leave the springs off of
the shocks just so we're not fighting those we do have the axle jacks that we can manipulate
where it is. We'll measure everything make sure it's right where we want it
tack the axle plates into place and then we can bring it down fully weld those
put our shocks and springs together and then set it all back up one more time.
We got the rear axle up in the car we got everything mocked up our measurements are
right we're just getting ready to tack weld the tabs on once we get these things tacked
we'll double check all of our measurements check our pinion angle our left to right
and we'll drop everything back out fully weld those on. Paint them. Paint. Paint's good. Details. Yep.
One thing to keep in mind when you're putting your exhaust back in the exhaust the way it
goes up over the axle may be in the way of this upper trailing arm. You'll want to double check
it the TTI exhaust is supposed to fit with this rear suspension and go up over the axle clear
everything. We've just cut this exhaust here and we're going to make sure we've got the most amount
of clearance so probably a v-band or something we can rotate. But keep in mind the exhaust
as you put it up at ride height and you may need to make some slight modifications.
Well Steve looks like we're pretty well wrapped up. Yeah yeah we got the whole rear system in
there with the new crossbar coil-overs trailing arms it's it's going to be a whole different car.
Got the full four-link in there. Yeah it'll be a whole different car once we finish
the front which is what we've got to do in the next video. All right. Let's get on
that. You guys come back for the next video. We appreciate you watching the video on the rear.
Come back and see us complete the front which we're going to start now.
And until then have any questions put them in the comments hit like if you like our series
of videos on our suspension installs and outside of that #goDRIVEit. All the time.
Hey Kasey. Is it worth it let me work it I put my game down flip it and reverse it
Step one turn the camera on then notify me. I'm waiting. It's on. It's on now? Are we good?