Rear Shock Swap

Before the days of the turbo build, various mods were done to restore the car’s livelihood. Replacing shocks on a first-gen Camaro is incredibly straightforward—it’ll actually take you longer to jack up the car and remove the wheels than it will to swap the parts.

A fresh shock and new bushings are all it takes to bring back some much-needed cruising comfort. If you’ve never tackled this before, the process was filmed to show the difference between classic and modern mechanics.

In the video below, we installed a pair of standard Monroe shocks. However, Turbo Camaro has since been upgraded to Monroe MaxAir shocks. These allow for manual height adjustment via air pressure, which is ideal for maintaining a level stance regardless of the load in the trunk. The original blue Monroes were kept as spares for future use.

Pro Tip: When installing rear shocks, always mount the top bolts first, then compress the shock by hand to line up the bottom mounting plate. Also, ensure the car is supported by jack stands on the frame, allowing the rear axle to hang slightly to give you enough room to work the shocks into position.