I want to set it down front and rear but I want to do it economically and keeping as much original suspension as possible. Any tips from somene who has done this before. I am probably just gonna drop out every other leaf, and had considered putting axle over the leafs but clearance looks "iffy". Any tips are greatly appreciated.
flip the spring pads on the rear will drop it. Not sure with the front..I have a Volare' on mine. I have a stock rear sitting here ready to go. I just took it out of mine and replaced it with an 8"
I have a Chevelle front on mine. Flipped the rear spring hanger & moved the front hanger up. I removed some spring leaves, but resulted in spring wrap when I got on it. It has a GM 10 bolt in it & we made upper triangulated bars for it, worked good. It has a 40 gal tank in it mounted where the spare tire was & when it was full the frame was on the rubber bumpers. Still rode OK.
Depends on how low you want. I went with Posies springs the ones that lower it 1-2 inches. The ride is good. I wish I would have measured before I started so that I would know how much drop I actually got. I put a 9 inch out back and lost an inch due to the bigger axle. It's the 52 in my profile. I like the way the front looks but want the back to come down some more. The rears are a full 9 leaves I think and the fronts are two leaves.
It's kind of a crappy pic but this is my friend Dave's F-1 We flipped the rear end and removed three leaves (mostly cause they were broken) We had to C notch it though, once the box was put back on the axle was touching the frame. For the front we just removed 3 leaves. Rearend before Rearend after (but before C notch)
Hey... first of all check out this thread...very good info here http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=320631
I lowered my 51 F1 the old school way. I got a dropped axle from Sid at http://www.droppedaxles.com/index.html So the front went down 3 inches. (3 inch dropped axle) I wanted some rake and drop in the back, so I took 3 leafs out of each spring pack in the rear, every other spring from the bottom up (I got all this info from HAMB searching) That brought the rear down 1.5 inches. Not a whole lot of drop, but I achived the stance I was going for. Considering its a driver on the shitty roads in Maine. Another Bonus from using the 3 Inch dropped axle in the front, is that asuming your front leafs are any good, you dont have to bend any of the steering components for clearence. Keeping my f1 close to stock was important to me. Here are some pics. Before: After Drop:
Thanks all for the info. I am ready to do some work this weekend and next week. Hopefully have the frame and brakes done and ready for the motor by next weekend. I posted some pics in my album of last weeks work. Once again thanks for the help.
Well I just finished lowering the rear. I got 2 1/4 inches by flipping the shackles and I will get another inch by dropping every other leaf and I didn't have to notch the frame.I will post some pics after some sleep and a shower.
Check my avatar, It has a metric MonteCarlo front clip stepped 7 1/2 inches. The reason I chose this was track width. It is perfect, unlike a camaro or nova where the tires sit too close to the fender. Drives, turns, and stops like a car. Where you see it is ride height. It is fairly easy to do, you can get the clip installed in a Saturday with a little help.
I used the (2) leaf posies from Speedway on the front of mine and lowered it @ 3". Rides great! Did not have to modify any of the stock suspension. I would rebuild all of the spring hangers though. It will help the ride. The rear I removed one middle leaf, installed new centering bolts and reclamped. Lowered the rear @ 1 1/2-2". Saved a bunch of $$'s instead of buying new ones. Again, I rebuilt the rear hangers as well. Install all new u-bolts - DO NOT reuse the old ones. Better safe than sorry~! New shocks on all corners are a good idea as well. Took me a little over 2-3 hours to do frt and back. Pics on grass were before lowering. On pavement after.
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