Suspension R&R and 1" Lowering

I have had my '78 Ghia apart for years, but its finally starting to come back together.

I redrilled the leaf spring mounting holes (on the shackles and forward hangers) 1" higher since I had them off, but now need to do something on the front. I have heard that removing 1/2 coil will result in a 1" lowering, so I'm going to try that.

I'm in the process of cleaning and painting the front suspension anyway, so this is a good excuse to pull the springs, cut them, and sand and paint them also. Plus it gives more space for getting to the A arms for cleaning and painting them. Eventually I'll blow the whole front end apart and replace the bushings and ball joints, but they look servicable for the moment, and I'm in rush to drive this thing again.

The driver side spring required the use of spring compressors even with the lower A arm at full drop, although not removing the steering arm and strut bar probably effected this a bit.

If it will ever quit raining here I'll get the passenger side coil removed, then it will be time to break out the cutting disc.

Following are some of the parts I have refinished for the project. The front sway bar links were replaced with new ones from Moog, so I didn't refinish the old ones.

More pics.

Pics of the cleanup and painting to follow, along with pics of the redrilled hangers and shackles.

I have also had the leaf springs sandblasted and have repainted them, but don't have any pics handy.

Finally got the passenger side coil out last week, then had a power tool accident while cleaning it this past Saturday. Angle grinder with wire wheel snagged the flattened end of the coil and took off. Luckily it didn't stay in contact with my leg for long. I'll definately be wearing a full face shield when I get under the car to clean the A-arms!

The good thing is that the coils both cleaned up very nicely and I could even see the paint stripe on each that designated the coil type for the production line workers. In the case of a '78 Ghia with 2.3L and 4-speed the stripe is white, about 1" wide, and goes down the coil vertically ending near the tail of the bottom coil.

Next step will be to cut 1/2 coil off of each and paint them. Then on to painting the front suspension parts and engine compartment. Some day I'll get it all reassembled...

A picture of the redrilled leaf spring hangers. Both have a new hole redrilled 1 inch higher (towards the car) so that the car will sit lower.

On the front hanger, the hole with the shiny edge is the new one. Obviously the front hanger is upside-down.

The hole in the rear hanger is actually about 1.5 inches higher as its a JCWhitney reproduction that unfortunately had an extra 1/2 inch of space between the bolts. So the drop will work out the same. I just need to trim off the extra and paint them.

Before you start on the rear hangers, you'll need to remove the bolts. They are splined on one side and are pressed in for an interferance fit. Just turn the nut around and pound the bolt back through.

This mod can be done with a hand drill, the proper sized drill bits, and a couple of clamps. Clamp up the parts then drill through with a small bit. then repeat a couple of times with larger bits until you reach the correct size. The bolts on the rear hanger just get hammered through one plate until their splines lock in. A shop vise is handy for both removing and reinstalling the splined bolts.

Over all a cheap and easy way to lower the back end 1 inch without using lowering blocks.

Cutting off 1/2 coil from the front springs.

I used a 3.5 inch cut-off wheel and a slow (1200 rpm) drill to cut the springs. Each side took about 10 minutes, but would have gone faster with a better clamp for the spring. I had to stop and reclamp the spring about a dozen times, which really slowed down the process. Between the slow drill and stopping from time to time, I didn't get a lot of heat into the spring and should not have damaged its temper.

A pretty easy mod over all.

Now I have to get the suspension cleaned and painted and the whole thing can go back together!

I did not measure these, but have a second set that I'm going to measure. Unfortunately I've misplaced my caliper, so I need to pick up a new one!