Give Her a Raise
A few months back, I had the front springs in Sacrebleu replaced. It changed the front ride height enough to give her the Carolina Squat, which kinda looks like a dog draggin’ its butt along the ground. Not the look I was looking for.
I placed an order with Jamco Springs, less than a week later, rear springs showed up. I ordered stock height. No drop. My goal is to have Sacrebleu at stock ride height front and rear until I convert over to Hydroshox. Rear springs typically aren’t difficult to do, well within my wheelhouse. Lift the car up by the differential, set the jack stands under the frame, let the differential droop, and the springs will just about fall out by themselves. Installation is the reverse of removal, naturally.
If only.
Since I think I know what I’m doing, I pull out the tools and equipment I think I’m going to need. Jack, jack stands, and a floor creeper. The floor creeper is to keep from getting scungy laying on the driveway. Casually, I toss the floor creeper on the ground in front of me, only to be reminded that being careless will earn you painful lessons and reminders. Today’s lesson: If you aren’t careful where you drop/toss things, they’ll land on YOU. The creeper landed edge first on my big toe, and it wasn’t like I was wearing safety shoes. Almost immediately, I can feel my heartbeat in my big toe. That hurt. I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose that toenail.
Ok, getting the rear end of the car up in the air was fairly easy, using the floor jack under the diff, just pump, pump, pump it up! I placed the jack stands under the frame, just forward of the rear wheels, to get the car as high up as possible. I carefully lowered the jack, hearing the jack stands bite into the stone driveway, then rocked the car to ensure it was stable and solid on the jack stands. Now all that’s left is to pull the springs out, as the rear end was just hanging there, right?
Yeah...
Nope. The rear shocks were at the limit of their travel, which wasn’t as far as the rear end could have dropped. Gotta pull the shock mounting bolts. 10 minutes of by guess and by golly, crawling under and out from the car on the floor creeper and I have the right size socket and wrench to pull the bolts. (3/4″ & 11/16″, if you’re keeping score.) Another 5 minutes with the 3/8″ impact abusing my ears, nothing is happening. Much crawling out from under the car taking place, with the help of my 1/2″ impact, the nut on the shock bolt comes out, with the shock bolt itself held in place by the friction of the axle hanging from it. Judicious application of mechanical agitation (I hit the bolt with a hammer.) frees the bolt from the mount, the axle droops, the spring is loose on the spring mount on the axle. Unfortunately for me, not so loose that I can pull it out by hand. Climbing out from under the car, I fetch a pry bar, find the right leverage point and free the spring. The other side goes a bit quicker, having learned my lesson. I unbox the new springs for an A/B comparison:
The 2 X 4 is there to ensure I’m measuring uniformly. 50 year old springs, I’m willing to bet.
That looks like about 3-1/2″ to me.
Alright, installation is the reverse of removal, right? By now, you ought to be way-y ahead of me. Let’s everyone say it together....
“Nope!”
New springs taller than old springs, new springs need more room to be installed, where I pried old springs out, there’s NO way I’m going to try and get 3-1/2″ of spring force levered onto the spring mount.
Hm.
Well, one way I could get more room is to lift one wheel up, the differential would act as the pivot point, and the other wheel would go down, and create more room between the axle and the upper spring pocket. Dragging the floor jack under the opposite side wheel, lifting the wheel up, it’s working, it’s working...
The droop wheel makes contact with the ground, and starts taking load. No more room. Crawling under the car, hoping against hope that there’s enough room, wrestling with the unwieldy spring, and...ain’t happenin’. I need more height on the droop side for the wheel to hang even lower. Great. Crawl back out from under the car, lower the opposite side wheel, drag the jack over to the frame next to the jack stand and raise it up. I’ve got to be close to the lift height limit of the jack, I manage to get the frame up another 1-1/2″. Lower it back on to the raised jack stand CAREFULLY, then drag the jack around to the opposite side wheel, lever it up with the jack under the wheel, and it’s juuuust enough room to lever the spring in, with a little help from the pry bar. The insulator is on top of the spring, and in the spring pocket, now it’s time to do the other side. Same routine, have to lift the side up even higher, nearing the height limit of the floor jack, wrestling the spring in with the help of the pry bar. I reinstall the lower shock bolts, after playing “Where’s the fastener?” for a while, because I hadn’t done a good job of setting the nuts and lock washers aside. Finally, I’m able to lift the car off the jack stands, then carefully lower it to the ground. Dragging everything clear of the car, I park Sacrebleu back where I started, and take this photo:
From Carolina Squat to Stinkbug Stance. She’s sitting nice and high now, so high, that I’m hoping a little bit of settling will take place, level her out front to back.
Standing behind Sacrebleu, the trunk lid is above my waistband now. Whoa!














