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General Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Buick_65 on February 06, 2016, 05:38:03 PM
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My car leans 1.5" or so to the left. So the passenger side is high. We've swapped springs and made sure everything looked good. Anybody else have that issue after installing new springs?
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Sounds like you have made sure that the spring is turned to the stop in the control arm.
Did you have the full weight of the car on the suspension when torqueing lower "A" arm bolts?
Just a thought,
Loren
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Is the whole side high (front and rear) or just the front ? In the video you posted earlier it looks like the whole passenger side of the car sits high. If it is did you swap the rear coils side to side also ? Plus what Loren said.
Dan
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Good point Dan!
One of the rear springs not turned to the stop in the top may cause the same thing.
Loren
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Currently it's a little less than the video shows. It's off to a much larger degree in the rear. I did not have the car together when we did the chassis, so will loosen and retorque the a arm bolts. Rears were swapped side to side, and are oriented correctly in the pocket.
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Where's the link to the video showing the car?
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Guess I would re-torque all the suspension bolts , front and rear.
I put the front up on ramps and the rear axle on jack stands. It makes for a real pain to work under.
Loren
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Where's the link to the video showing the car?
https://www.facebook.com/todd.sparrow.7/videos/1076135232430958/?pnref=story (https://www.facebook.com/todd.sparrow.7/videos/1076135232430958/?pnref=story)
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Currently it's a little less than the video shows. It's off to a much larger degree in the rear. I did not have the car together when we did the chassis, so will loosen and retorque the a arm bolts. Rears were swapped side to side, and are oriented correctly in the pocket.
What can end up happening is a rear spring that's high will push down the opposite front corner of the car making the front sit crooked also.
Dan
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Have a look at your shocks . One could be stuck or binding. I know it's not a lot of fun but you may want to check the shocks manually . ie make both front are cycling the same (equal pressure in and out) Do the same with the rear.
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I'll swap the shocks side to side and see what we see.
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If the rear is the culprit, you can put a spacer between the rear's spring mount pad and the spring..... A metal disc/washer a couple of inches in diameter.
Might be best to take the springs out and compare side-to-side. If there's a noticeable difference in free height, call Espo and see if they'll exchange them.
I put some Moogs on the rear of my red '66 and it was uneven. Installed spacers to level it out.
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Mine are moogs as well I believe. Free height appears to be the same. If it's the spring it's a rate issue.
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Did you swap the rear springs left to right? And the right side is still high?
If yes, the front springs could be the cause.
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I wonder if these cars were perfectly level when brand new? Technology and tolerances have definitely advanced.
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Manual specs
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Dear Walt, Jim, nail lark, and mid-60s Buick . . . . . "real guys" . . . :BangHead:
Manual specs
(http://www.canebas.org/WeatherCat/Forum_support_documents/Custom_emoticons/wink_smile_triangle.gif) . . . . Oh No! (http://www.canebas.org/WeatherCat/Forum_support_documents/Custom_emoticons/eek2.gif) . . . Was this a case where you exhausted every last alternative to reading the instructions!
Did you try a lot of oil? How about grease?
. . . .
How about some glue?, duct tape?, bobby pins?, . . . chewing gum?
PLEASE!! Anything but the instructions!!! . . . . . (http://www.canebas.org/WeatherCat/Forum_support_documents/Custom_emoticons/big_grin_triangle.gif)
Cheers, Edouard :cheers2:
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Yup you didn't say try a bigger hammer. Know back to business . You have to eliminate possibilities , what you do know is that your front is wrong on the front. Eliminate the back first it is the easiest . Block your front level . Put your blocks under the frame at the fire wall where the body mounts are. Go to back measure from frame to top of housing on both sides, it should be close to the same. Passenger side could be a tad lower because of spare tire and jack, but not much 1/16 ?. If level you eliminated rear if not tack shocks off bottom bolts check again. If not level loosen rear suspension bolts check side to side again if not level rear springs is the only thing left. When rear is ok remove blocks go to front. Measure determine which side is not right eliminate shocks and bushings like rear. If not level pretty much has to be spring, not in place ,to short, one spring not tempered the same as the other. One other note the rear upper link has two sets of bolt holes on the cross member. Check to see that they are in the same hole position . You can also block frame under lower A frame pivots. Only block high enough just to level front. Your flour must be level. If your on a floor like I have with waves in it it's hard to get good measurements .
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Firstly, I can assure you all instructions available to me were followed. Now what I seek is the tribal knowledge that you find gentlemen posses that never gets documented in those instructions.
I think the front is off in response to the rear being off. Just a hunch, but that's my thinking. This was supported by the fact that the delta was lessened by the installation of the sway bar. We put the car on the lift, which is level, and measured the frame to the ground. All checks out. The control arms are in the same bolt location in the cross member. Bottom if I recall. The next thing is to remove the shocks and see what we see.
Its not a spring rate issue because the problem didn't move when we swapped the springs side to side.
Color me frustrated.
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Are you saying that the frame to ground is level?
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Disregard above. Did you completely disassemble front and rear suspension? When you did car. Did it sit level before Disassembly?
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Everything was disassembled and replaced, yes. It was over 20 years ago that it was disassembled, so I don't recall how it sat to be honest.
The frame was really good, we confirmed all of the measurements in the factory manual before assembling the chassis. And it sat level before the motor went in.
I never noticed it was leaning until the first time I drove it. What's weird is it seems to change, but the springs are all still in the pockets where they belong each time we measure.
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Very odd. Couple of things to try; loosen the front & rear control arm nuts to free the arms up, and drive it around a little.
Then snug them back down with full car weight on the suspension. I don't know where you sourced the springs, but maybe there
is an issue there...? The rear pockets are pretty easy to check to see if a spring is to in the pocket, but the fronts can be deceiving.
I usually pull the shock out to check that on the fronts. I have done it in the past and thought they were in, and were not.
Tough one, can't think of anything else. Go back and look at everything carefully front to back.
Mark
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Very odd indeed. Had an A arm with a flaw in it that caused it to rub and hangup. Might want to check that when you're under there. Easy to spot. Are the springs a recent purchase ? Had a member here that had some older springs sag on him. Wish I could help more.
Dan
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One other thing You took the upper control arms off did you replace the shafts and nuts ? Even if you didn't check the shafts to make sure that they are centered . I gather that you have a manual it talks about centering the shafts. If they are not centered they will bind going up or down depending on which way they are off center, if they are to far off center they will bottom out in the nuts. Also those shafts should move freely . I remember when I started to work for GM I changed a set and had trouble with them binding.
Morrie
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If you can get access to a wheel scale like the racers use, weigh each corner of the car. The corner with the most difference in left to right is likely the culprit.
Good suggestion on the binding front upper shafts, I didn't think of that!
Try disconnecting the front sway bar. A bent bar (unlikely) or wrong end links could preload the suspension.
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Yes check to see that the bolts that go between the sway bar and control arm are the same length.
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It,s hard to fix over the computer , but if you say it almost seems to change from side to side it sounds like something is binding .
One thing we used to do on our race car is remove the shocks and give it the old bounce test , it should come back up to a fairly consistent ride height everytime . Also push down slowly on each side then let up slowly and see if it stays down on one side or the other .
There is a lot of things that can cause ride height problems , some easy to find some not so easy .
Was the body ever off the frame ? were the ball joints replaced ? They actually make ball joints for gm A bodies with 3 different pin heights .
just some things to check .
I could talk suspensions for a whole week .
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when you do the bounce a good set of ears helps. You can sometimes hear a squeak or a moan that could indicate a bind. With the shocks off you can get more of a bounce that could make things show up .
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It,s hard to fix over the computer ,
It's proving just as hard to fix in person.
Thanks everyone for the good ideas, we are going to start eliminating them one by one. All of the easy stuff has been knocked out, no on to the more labor intensive items.
On the bright side, I do finally have functional power steering so I can drink coffee during my road tests.
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Well, it's level now. Turned out the right front was just a skosh out of the pocket which had a pretty dramatic impact on the left rear. Additionally one of the rear springs (cheap ass Moog springs) settled an unusually high amount. We trimmed the other side to match (need to get some new ones in the long run) and all is well. Only had to take enough of the rear to make up 5/8 or so.
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Fantastic !! Glad you got it fixed. When you go to replace those try http://www.springsnthings.com/. (http://www.springsnthings.com/.) Quite a few of the forum members have had good success with them and the prices are good too.
Dan
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Glad to hear you are on the level. Such a little thing such a big effect .
Morrie
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Fantastic !! Glad you got it fixed. When you go to replace those try [url]http://www.springsnthings.com/.[/url] ([url]http://www.springsnthings.com/.[/url]) Quite a few of the forum members have had good success with them and the prices are good too.
Dan
That's the plan. Thanks for the link!
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:thumbsup: