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NOTE: My car is an '08. I believe the kit I used is for any '06 and newer non-Z06 car.

I just completed this yesterday and I figured I'd do a write-up to let anyone thinking of doing it themselves what to expect. Note that the instructions available for these kits depict a drivetrain that is NOT in a car during installation. Obviously, this changes things a bit if you intend to do it in the car.

First of all, I will say that I have basic mechanical knowledge and a decent selection of hand tools.

That said, I've never disassembled my car to the degree I did and if you never have either, plan on the better part of a whole day to get it done if you're doing it without a lift.

There's nothing about the job that's technically difficult or complicated, but it can be extremely tedious and time-consuming.

I'd also like to thank SlickShoes for his excellent thread on dropping the C6 drivetrain as it laid out what to expect from pulling the rear cradle and davidfarmer for his website that includes a great .pdf with every torque spec you could need. You can find those threads here....

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-t...ion-4-0-a.html

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-t...info-here.html

I will try to be as thorough as possible though I have forgotten a lot of the individual bolt sizes and such since yesterday.

1) Elevate the rear of the car on jackstands. I recommend lifting the front as well so you can get to the bolts connecting the midpipes to the catback, but I did not (which in retrospect was a mistake).

2) Remove the wheels and the rear calipers (15/18mm wrenches to loosen the guide pin bolts on the calipers). I used some lengths of wire coat hanger to hang the calipers on the brake ducts out of the way.

3) with the e-brake on firmly, use a 33mm axle nut socket to loosen and remove the axle nuts. (release the e-brake when done).

4) disconnect the elctrical connector running to the hub and disconnect the e-brake cables on each side by pulling UP on the cable where it fits into the bracket on the hub, then sliding the cable out of the slot, then sliding the eye on the end of the cable down off the lever on the e-brake assembly.

4a) On the driver side, there is also a ground wire that splits off the electrical harness and runs to a small stud in upper rear area of the wheel well behind the upper A-arm mount. You can't miss it. A 10mm wrench will take it off.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s...d/49a54159.jpg

5) Use an 18mm socket to loosen and remove the bolts holding the upper A-arm to the body. Be careful not to let the hub assembly fall forward.

6) slowly tilt the hub forward while slowly pulling and supporting the half shaft from the splines on the hub. flex the outer CV while simultaneously turning the hub a bit to get the outer stub completely out from behind the rotor. It will be a bit tight but take your time and it will come out.

7) Have a buddy support the weight of the half shaft and slide under the car with a straight pry bar or large screwdriver. place your prying tool of choice up into the space between the inner CV housing and the snout on the side of the differential case (be a bit careful not to fool around with it too much as you will be right up against the axle seal). You will be looking and prying through a small space between the rear x-member and the leaf spring.

8) Give the prybar a little pop to one side and you should feel/see the axle "click" as it disengages the C-clip on the output shaft. Once it does, simply pull the shaft away from the differential and remove it from the car. Repeat on the other side and this is what you should be left with thus far....

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s...d/6b3320a7.jpg

9) At this point, I will stray off the procedure I used as I disconnected the shocks from the bottom where they connect to the lower A-arm. I did this because I wasn't sure how far the shocks would extend once free and it seemed easier to jack them back into place to bolt them up from the bottom. In truth, with the wheels off the ground, the lower A-arm will sag plenty low to get them back in place from the top. Support the lower A-arm with a small jack and disconnect the two upper shock bolts, then slowly lower the jack. The way I did it simply made the shocks a nuisance when climbing in and out from under the car.

10) Once the shocks are free, start inspecting the wiring/e-brake/cable and brake lines wherever they are anchored to or thread through the rear cradle.... The rubber lines have a bracket anchoring them to the cross member on each side, held in place with a 10mm bolt. Visible here....

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s...d/9521eaab.jpg

11) The hard lines are clipped to each side of the cross member in two spots on each side with barbed body pins. prying them up from the top seems to be easiest though you will probably damage the pins a bit anyway. The passenger side is clipped in one spot that's a bit hard to see so be sure you get it before dropping the cradle. It's sitting on the inboard side of the cradle behind the front lower A-arm mount.

12) the wiring/e-brake cable is threaded through the cross member and clipped to it using two different style pins, one barbed and one with the center stud that secures the pin. The latter is a bit difficult to remove as its real tight. A fork works well for pulling the center of the pin if you don't have the dedicated tool for it. I ended up mangling these pretty good and ended up using tie wraps through the hole in the bracket/cross member to replace them. The area I'm describing is seen here after the pins were removed...

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s...d/328babef.jpg

13) once everything is free from the cradle, you can loosen and remove the 4 nuts that connect the differential mounts to the cradle. I BELIEVE they are 18mm.

14) IMPORTANT: At this point, support the transmission with a bottle jack. The best place to place it seemed to be the flat surface where the trans bolts to the intermediate section between it and the differential itself. I also placed a jackstand under the center of the trans and about 2 inches below it that would allow it to be lowered, but still catch it if the bottle jack slipped.

15) Place two floorjacks under the rear cradle and support it tightly. I found that the best placement was under each of the inboard leaf-spring mounts for optimum balance of a pretty heavy assembly. You could use one jack if you wanted but placing it under the front or rear beams of the cross member will leave it off balance front to rear and I don't really think supporting it from the center of the composite leaf-spring itself is a good idea.

16) before removing the cradle nuts (two on each side, see SlickShoes' thread for pictures of the locations), I traced around them with a Sharpie since they sat off-center in what looked to be indexed recesses. I'm not sure if I was lucky or they really only go back in one way but re-installing the cradle left them exactly where they were supposed to be without any adjustment needed so this may be unnecessary.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s...d/89989c43.jpg

17) Once the 4 nuts are off, alternate lowering the floorjacks a couple inches at a time until the cradle is free from the car (DOUBLE CHECK THAT THE HARD BRAKE LINES ARE TOTALLY FREE OF THE CRADLE AFTER A COUPLE INCHES OF TRAVEL!!!). Also be sure to stop and thread the wiring/e-brake cables through the holes in the cross member periodically as they have a tendency to hang up by the plastic clips that attach them to each other and you don't want to stretch anything.

18) When you're all clear with the above steps, drop the cradle low enough to get it out from under the car and slowly roll it back out (careful not to catch the pins on the rear cradle mounts on your rear fascia). You may also want to put some cardboard down under each rotor so you don't scrape them on your driveway.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s...d/91f8879d.jpg

19) Once the cradle is out and clear, I HIGHLY recommend removing the exhaust. It will throw a serious monkey-wrench in the works when you try to work on the top bracket on the front of the transmission. I was unable to work the axle-back section off because the ears on the diff (where the rubber mounts connect to it) prevented the pipes from coming out far enough. No matter what I did I could not get them clear.

Had I elevated the front of the car, I could have crawled under there and unbolted the midpipes so I could have simply dropped the whole length of the pipe. Your results may vary on this, but the exhaust gave me a huge problem and slowed down the process considerably.

I ended up simply loosening the axle-back so i could move the pipes a little as necessary. If you have NPP exhaust, be sure to disconnect the vacuum hoses from actuators before unbolting the two hangers hooking each can to the rear of the car.

20) At this point, you're ready to install the brace brackets. First, disconnect your intake tube from the throttle body (if you have a blower like I do, make sure you do both the intake and the charge pipe). This will allow the motor to tilt back a bit without pulling on anything up front.

21) Lower the jack supporting the diff/trans a couple inches. DO NOT GO FURTHER THAN THAT AS A) the tunnel plate is still bolted in below the torque tube and B) The intake manifold will get pretty close to the firewall pretty quickly as you begin to lower everything. The top transmission bracket is a bit of a pain as you have to remove the top two trans bolts (and the next one down on the pass. side). They're hard to get to and one is pretty tough to even see. This will be tedious....take your time.

22) Once the three bolts are out, slide the top bracket (the L-shaped one with three bolt holes and two flanges) up over the trans and work it back against the flange of the trans case. This will be kind of a pain as again, you're working partially blind and there is also a wiring harness above the trans on the passenger side that makes moving your hands around up there a little difficult. Once you get it lined up thread in three of the 5 long collar bolts form the kit in and tighten them down (I couldn't get more than a small ratchet in there so you won't have much leverage to work with).

23) the bottom bracket is quite easy as it's completely unobstructed. Thread in the other two long collar bolts and tighten them down.

24) The diff side brackets are not too bad, though my diff case had a raised casting on the driver side that would not allow the plate to sit flush against the side cover. About 10 minutes with a dremel solved that problem. You can see the obstruction I'm talking about here....

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s...d/23036286.jpg

25) Once the side cover is ready to go, bolt on the side plates (don't forget the lock washers!) and torque them to 25 foot pounds using the 10 shorter collar bolts in the kit.

26) Wait on the crossbar that bolts the top flange of the side plates together. It's easier to install the top rod-ends without it in the way (again, something I learned by not doing it that way).

27) Install the last bracket to the bottom of the differential case, between the rubber diff mounts (long, straight one with two flanges welded on the ends, it will only go on one way). For this step you will use the long threaded rod in the kit along with its two nuts on the driver side. Remove the long bolt that's on the lower left corner of the diff case (if you're viewing from the rear) and replace it with the threaded rod and one nut). remove the nut directly across the bottom of the diff (viewing from the front). slide the bracket onto both studs and re-install the stock nut on the pass. side and the other nut packaged with the rod on the driver side.

28) assemble the rods/rod-ends making sure to use one RH and one LH threaded rod-end in each (LH thread on the knurled end of the rod). Tighten all the jam nuts down as far as they go and thread the rod ends in all the way to start.

29) Start with the front of the top rods. These were probably the toughest bolts to turn in the entire project. Slide one of the shorter non-collared bolts (6 in the kit) through the rod (make sure you orient the knurled end of the rod toward the rear) and work your hand up above the trans. thread the bolt into the top of the flange on the bracket you installed and use a 9/16" open end wrench to tighten it down (the aforementioned wiring harness makes this an extreme pain in the ass). Repeat on the other side (marginally easier because of the lack of wiring but still quite hard to fit a wrench up there).

30) use the last two collar bolts and nylon nuts in the kit to connect the rear rod-ends of the top bars to the INSIDE of the FRONT holes in the diff side plate brackets (bolt in through the outside of the bracket, nut inside against the rod-end). Use the wrench from the last step on the inside to hold the nut and you can easily get a ratchet on IF your exhaust pipes are off the car (I was able to do it with them on, but it was a little tougher). Obviously you will have to twist the rods to lengthen them a bit until the rod-end lines up with the hole in the side bracket.)

31) Once these are tight, use the two coarse-thread bolts in the kit to install the crossbar in the rear holes of the diff side brackets, adjacent to the holes you just connected to the top rods. I believe it was 40 foot pounds on these.

31) The bottom rods are again, unobstructed and easy. They will only fit with the bolt coming up from the bottom (so rod end under the bracket) on the front and out from the inside (so rod end inside the bracket) on the rear. Tighten everything down and you've got this!

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s...d/30a29616.jpg

32) Pre-load the rods as necessary (1/2 turn after the snug up nice), taking care that you're twisting them shorter and not longer. The upper rods will be tough to turn as there's not much room to turn a punch or screwdriver in the hole in the rod. A standard 90 degree allen key is a good option for those.

33) once you're done, reverse the cradle removal, re-install the differential mounting nuts and hook everything back up making sure to take care when routing the lines/wires/cable through again. It's easy to crush something if you lift the cradle back into place without stopping periodically to adjust everything. Like I said I used tie wraps in areas where I no longer had confidence in the plastic body pins.

34) bolt your suspension back up, be sure to re-attach any intake pipes you disconnected up front and you're done!:woohoo:

Total time for me was LONG (a whole day) but I was EXTRA cautious when removing the cradle and of course I could have saved considerable time removing the entire catback to get the over-axle pipes out of the trans tunnel.