What was my rear suspension plan anyway?

[derekf]

So one of the downsides of being on such a slow build (fifteen years so far!) is that sometimes you lose track of what you were thinking (another is "I know I bought that part! Where did I put it?" but that's not something y'all can help me with).

I am relatively sure that I planned out my suspension with Dennis (dennis68/sinned) back in 2005. Dennis hasn't posted on the site in ten years, and hasn't logged in in five. I found an archived copy of his website on web.archive.org but it doesn't discuss rear suspension at all, and I can't find a thread nor a PM with him about it (it is possible that we discussed in one of the Thursday chats back then and I didn't take good enough notes)

Fronts are ATX spindles, SPC uppers, delalum bushings, and Afco 750 lb springs with adjusters. That makes perfect sense to me.

In the rear, however, I bought springs in 2005 from Speedway. I don't know what they are or what my plan with them was. I mean - I know they're 150 lb springs, it says so on the spring.



I'm not sure what I was doing with them though - they're they're much shorter (about 10 inches free height) and skinnier (maybe 5 instead of 8 inches?). They give me about 4 inches of drop which is probably excessive and I fear that if I go over a speedbump too fast with these in, they'll fall out; they don't "fall in" to the pegs on the frame at the top naturally.

Does anyone have any insight into what I was thinking? Did I fail to order the adjusters I needed for the back, or did I just order the wrong springs? All opinions are welcome, the only thing I'm sure of is that I can't use what I've got as it sits.

[79T/Aman]

you may have the wrong style spring, A-bodies used either the pig tail style or the barrel style with the change being 67.
Dennis was one of those real DIY guys I think he was kicked off for some reason, maybe he ruffled some vendor feathers, a real hot rodder in my opinion.

[Josh@Ridetech]

That would be a pretty short spring compared to everything I've seen on an A body. Normally if you go more than a 2" drop you start running the axle tubes into the frame rails when the suspension compresses. Maybe you were planning to put a shim or adjuster under them back in the day?

[derekf]

Could be - I'd bought the adjusters for the front with this order, maybe there was a thing on "get the car to this point and then decide between adjuster A and adjuster B"?

Does something like this:


get me where I need to be, or is that really just a bandaid in this case and I need to just go ahead and buy different springs?

[dhutton]

UMI has some nice lowering springs for A bodies.

Don

[Josh@Ridetech]

Could be - I'd bought the adjusters for the front with this order, maybe there was a thing on "get the car to this point and then decide between adjuster A and adjuster B"?

Does something like this:


get me where I need to be, or is that really just a bandaid in this case and I need to just go ahead and buy different springs?

I've seen these used every now and then (on dirt track cars more than anything ). They can work and would give you some height adjustability. However, rear springs aren't that expensive and you wouldn't have the headache of adjusting anything if you got a spring that sat you where you wanted to be the first time. Our Streetrgrip springs would be something good for you to look at. Give me a call if you want and I'll make sure you get pointed in the direction you want to go!