How to Replace Rear Axle 1998-2009 Chevy Trailblazer

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Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing or maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20-plus years experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts installed correctly: that's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.

In this video, we're going to show you how to remove a rear axle on this 2004 Chevy Trailblazer. This is pretty indicative of any Chevy or GM product that has a C-Clip rear axle, and when I say C-Clip, you'll see what I mean in the video. You'll need various metric and standard sockets or wrenches, ranging in size from 5/16's inch to 19 millimeters with the ratchets and the extensions, a breaker bar or a pipe for leverage for some of those bolts that are tighter than others, catch pin, jack and jack stands, flat blade screwdriver and two M10 by 7 centimeter bolts, as well as a 3/8's drive ratchet with an extension.

For the rear tire, the lug nuts are 19 millimeters. If you don't have air tools, you want to start with the vehicle on the ground, loosen the lug nuts, raise it, support it with jack stands, and then remove the lug nuts. We'll use some fast forward as we remove the rest of the lug nuts and the wheel.

We want to use a screwdriver. What I'm doing is pulling out on the caliper. That just helps to get it off the brake pads. You remove two bolts, and then remove the caliper. On this vehicle, those are 14 millimeter bolts. Pull up on the caliper, put it up and out of your way, and then you can just pry out the brake pads. You actually can skip this step. You can just pull the bracket off. Then you want the pad bracket, two 18 millimeter bolts on this vehicle. I'm going to use a piece of pipe, along with my ratchet, and the pipe actually just gives you some extra leverage. Then on the lower bolt on this vehicle, it has a clearance issue, so I'm going to put on my 18 millimeter wrench. Then I'm going to hook another 17 millimeter wrench on to it and pull down. Then, finish off taking those bolts out. Now, the bracket comes off, and then hopefully, your disc will just pull off. On this vehicle, it doesn't, but the vehicle has two threaded holes, so you insert some M10 metric bolts and use your wrench. You tighten those bolts up, which forces the disc off of the hub.

Now, you want to turn your drive shaft with your vehicle in neutral until you have a good angle at that bolt right there. Using a 5/16 inch socket, remove this bolt. As you remove this bolt, you want to hold this pin up here, pull that bolt out, and let that slowly slide down. That will allow you to actually push your axle in, which then allows you to pull out a C-clamp. It should just fall down here. I need a magnet. That C-clamp comes out, which now allows you to pull out slowly your axle.
Now, put the axle back in. You want to lift up on it so it doesn't drag against your seal. You just move it around a little bit, push it in, just has to find its way on the inside. Here, what you're really hoping is nothing has moved, so we're going to take our C-clamp, and the side that has a groove near the center is the one you want to put towards the center. You just put that on to the axle that's pushing out through right there. Then you can actually push the axle back by hand. Make sure you have this shaft nice and clean. Put it up in with the hole at the bottom. This is where you're hoping that these gears didn't move around at all. It would appear that they did just a little bit. I'm just going to line it up with my finger. It goes in, push this in, start it into place, and your axle's locked back in place. As that's going in, I'm just going to hit it with a little dab of Loctite. Being greasy and stuff, it's not going to stick that well, but that's okay. You want to tighten this up probably to about 8 to 10 foot pounds, which is tight with this little wrench. That's good.

Now we're going to get back into cleaning everything up and putting it back together, so I just wipe down the inside as much as I can, get as much dirt and everything out of there as possible. Now clean up and wipe down your rear end cover, and there's a little rectangle there that's the magnet. Make sure you get that wiped off really well. Right there displaying it, you can see I clean it up better. On this one, you do reuse your gasket, and I put just a little bit of sealant on the cover just to help with some of the crustiness from the rust. Now, we'll put our cover up there, start it with a couple bolts, then start all the bolts by hand, and then tighten them preliminarily with a wrench after that. Now, we skip forward. You want to torque these bolts to about 12 foot pounds. It's not very much, but it's enough to seal it. You don't want to over-torque it, because you'll get leaks because you warp your differential cover. About 12 foot pounds, I tighten them using an opposite pattern, and then I just go around one by one and just make sure they're all tight.

Now, we're going to refill the rear end. There's a plug right on the passenger side. Use a 3/8's ratchet with an extension, remove that plug, and then fill it with 80w-90 gear oil. I use a little tube; it helps get the bottle in the position so that you can fill it easier. Once you've filled it and the fluid starts dripping down, put your plug back in, tighten it up. You don't have to tighten it incredibly tight, but get it nice and snug, and then wipe down all the grease off of the rear end so you can check for leaks later.

Now, I'm going to put the brakes back together. If you want to see this in regular speed, just check out our other videos for the Trailblazer rear brake installation. You can see I've got both a new backing plate and new brakes on there. If you want to see those, just check out our other videos on the whole process for that. We'll get through that.

Very important, you've had your brakes apart, you obviously want to torque your lug nuts on there properly. You want to pump your brakes afterwards, make sure that you get your brakes reset and make sure that they're working properly before you test drive the vehicle. Torque the lug nuts to between 100 and 120 foot-pounds. I use a crossing star type pattern, and then you can put your cap back on. Always make sure after you've had your brakes apart, that you pump the pedal a bunch of times, work the pressure back up, and make sure you work the brake caliper pistons back into place.

We hope this video helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com, your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll-free, 888-844-3393. We're the company that's here for you on the Internet and in person.

How to Replace Rear Axle 1998-2009 Chevy Trailblazer

step 1 :Removing the Wheel

step 2 :Removing the Brake Pads

step 3 :Removing the Brake Rotor

step 4 :Accessing the Differential

step 5 :Removing the Axle

step 6 :Installing the New Axle

step 7 :Reinstalling the Differential Cover

step 8 :Refilling the Rear End

step 9 :Reinstalling the Brake Rotor

step 10 :Reinstalling the Brake Pads

step 11 :Reattaching the Wheel

step 12 :Testing the Brakes

Tools needed

Shop Products

Front CV Axle Assembly TRQ CSA82129

Part Details:

How to Replace CV Axle Shaft 1998 Volvo S70

How to Replace Rear Axle 1998-2009 Chevy Trailblazer

step 1 :Removing the Wheel 1:22

step 2 :Removing the Brake Pads 1:49

step 3 :Removing the Brake Rotor 2:20

step 4 :Accessing the Differential 3:31

step 5 :Removing the Axle 4:20

step 6 :Installing the New Axle 5:58

step 7 :Reinstalling the Differential Cover 8:28

step 8 :Refilling the Rear End 9:50

step 9 :Reinstalling the Brake Rotor 10:35

step 10 :Reinstalling the Brake Pads 11:02

step 11 :Reattaching the Wheel 11:30

step 12 :Testing the Brakes 12:05

Tools needed

Shop Products

Front CV Axle Assembly TRQ CSA82129

Part Details:

How to Replace CV Axle Shaft 1998 Volvo S70

step 1 :Removing the Wheel

step 2 :Removing the Brake Pads

step 3 :Removing the Brake Rotor

step 4 :Accessing the Differential

step 5 :Removing the Axle

step 6 :Installing the New Axle

step 7 :Reinstalling the Differential Cover

step 8 :Refilling the Rear End

step 9 :Reinstalling the Brake Rotor

step 10 :Reinstalling the Brake Pads

step 11 :Reattaching the Wheel

step 12 :Testing the Brakes