For those of you who have done a rear end swap, specifically a 2nd gen Camaro, how did you address any shock/shock plate issues? I was looking at the shock plates that go with the rear that I have, and there appear to be some major differences that would need to be addressed. The stock ones on the torque tube rear have a bar that bends like a hook, downward, leaving the mount hole vertical. The ones for the 2nd gen have horizontal holes on the tab and, I could be wrong, it looks like the mounts attach so that one tab is towards the front, the other towards the back? My 2nd gen rear is a disc w/limited slip diff, with the right caliper on the rear of the rotor, and the left caliper on the front of the rotor. Besides the fact that the pin hole has to be moved, are the 2nd gen stock ones useable as is, or not? If they are, were there issues with mounting the shocks that had to be taken care of? For the sake of keeping the shock mount points the same, I was thinking of fabricating one to match the current mount positions of the stock shocks. I'm interested to see how others have handled this, and figured I'd sapped my weekly quota of info out of RustyNewYorker! I'm also interested to hear about the entire shock setup, like what you used, and if you found shock mounts like the ones over at Speedway that worked. RustyNewYorker suggested seeing if Fatman Fab sells the mounts separate from their rear end package, as their mounts already have the moved pin hole.....but I couldn't find anything on their site to suggest that. 81 Shock Mounts Speedway shock mounts:
No reason in the world to change the stock position of the shocks if nothing interferes with them after your installation.
That's actually my question ( I guess I wasn't shooting it straight enough), using the shock mounts that go with the 2nd gen rear, does that keep the shock mounting points in the same place, or does it move it? If it does, what changes have to be made to the shock mount or elsewhere?
Dunno if you are still looking at this but I put a rear end out of a 79 firebird into my 52 Pontiac. The original shock mounts would not work so I used the shock mounts off of a early 90's S -10 and then welded some 3/16 plate to them to mount the shocks since they mount forward of the housing. I used the weld on speedway engineering spring perch. I do not know if the factory firebird plates will work, I do not remember what they looked like
I cut off part of the stock lower shock mounts and welded them to the camaro spring plates. And yes on the 2nd gen camaros one shock is in front and one is in back. Pic also shows the offset hole for the spring bolt.
I was going to try and figure out a way to use the 81 plates unmodified, but I was concerned about having the rear one facing forward and how that would affect shock mounting. WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THIS? You're friggin brilliant. Your avatar sez it all. SO, does that mean you're going to keep the shocks mounted to the floorpan on your body the way it originally was?
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