Cut springs didn't work

[Wall]

Well from doing some reading about how much to cut my front springs on the 67 firebird I decided half a coil should be enough. But after taking the springs out I noticed there was a coil pocket on the upper and lower A arms so I started thinking if I just cut half a coil then one side of the spring will not be seated fully in the pocket but I went on anyway and tried it and sure enough it didn't work and the car looks like it sits higher than it did before. Not really a big deal though so I guess I'll just cut the other half of the coil and see if it will be where I want it. What made this worse is I had loaned out my spring compressor and it was a bit of a pain getting the upper ball joint nut started so I'll have my compressor next time. Anyone ever ran into this?

[zbugger]

Are you positive the springs are seated correctly? Both top AND bottom?

[David Pozzi]

As you found out, the coil is flattened on the end, the first half coil cut off does very little since the spring pocket is tapered to match the coil. Once you cut more than a half coil off, it starts to make a bigger difference, when you get to a full coil the end of coil drops into the spring pocket and it makes a much larger difference at that point so be careful cutting coils. Cutting a stiff aftermarket coil makes much more difference than cutting a stock coil.

[Wall]

Are you positive the springs are seated correctly? Both top AND bottom?


No they aren't, since I only cut half a coil the the coil spring will no longer line up in both pockets at the same time. I thought about this before I put it back together but I figured I'd try it since I've heard of people just cutting half coils.

[MrQuick]

that's half at a time.