One of my buddies with an 01 SS like my suspension setup so much he wanted it for himself so he bought it. We get around to it finally today at the Auto Craft shop of Ft. Carson at about 2:00 this afternoon. We got to working on the back which was completed in 30-45 minutes. This was my third install so I'm pretty good at it now. I knew the right front was gonna be a PITA but not this bad. I got the assembly out and saw an assload of rust. We put it in the wall spring compressor and went to work on it with an impact and some lubricating oil. It wouldn't budge. I get a cutoff wheel, and grind right down the center of the shock shaft and nut and then hit it with the impact. It came right off but the spring was still compressed. After pulling, pounding, and beating on it I got uncomfortable with it being in the wall compressor so we cut the shock shaft in half with a hacksaw and went to the workbench. We put what was left of the assembly in a vise and beat the shock shaft so bad at the top that the shaft started to mushroom at the top and the rubber hat was getting damaged. This was with a regular three lb. hammer. We ripped off what we could of the protective boot and used more lube, beat and pounded some more, no luck. We were up to 1 1/2 hours at this point and were getting really pissed. I grabbed the cutoff wheel again and when I was done we had the shock hat, the steel top of the protective boot, and about four inches of the shock shaft still rusted inside and not coming loose at all. Yeah, I had to cut the spring off! Finally, I got a giant socket, set it on top of the vise and put the hat on top of it, and beat the shaft with a 4 lb. sledge and it finally moved. Too bad it was too mushroomed to clear the hole. I grabbed the cutoff wheel again and ground the mushroomed part flush with the hat and finally got it out with the sledge and a punch. The driver side bolt looked like the brand new hardware we were putting on and come apart easy as hell. So what should have taken 3.5-4 hrs. ended up taking about 6.5. How does anyone use stock shocks on aftermarket springs?

BTW, he loves the setup and his SS looks bad as hell. Sorry no pics.

 

I thought I was going too, until I saw all the rust. Had to go buy some Monore's from AutoZone and ended up within that week buying some Koni SA's. I wouldn't even recommend trying to use stock shocks to anyone.

 

Here's the end result, looks good and has a perfect bulldog stance.