Hello all,
I thought I'd share our experiences with leaf springs from the past two weeks. We bought our 72 Challenger about a month ago. The guy I bought it from said "the front leaf spring shackle is busted". At the time I figured he just didn't know what he was talking about
, it looked like the bushing was missing from the leaf spring eye when I got down on the ground and looked at it. You can imagine my suprise when I got the car home and went to install a new bushing when I discovered that most of the spring eye was missing entirely.
So I broke out the catalogs, did some web surfing, and ordered the Mopar Heavy Duty springs from Summit Racing. They arrived in a couple of days and I installed them. I hear y'all are pic whores
, so here's some pics of the broken passenger leaf spring compared to the Mopar passenger side spring:
The install was pretty straight forward, the only trouble I had was that I had to cut off the u-bolts on the axel. I dropped the car to the ground after the install and one of the rear tires was just barely touching the fender lip. (Sorry no pic) If I recall correctly the tires are 255 70R15, but the backspacing of the wheels are incorrect and push the wheels out to the outside of the fender lip.
So I removed the Mopar leafs and called Summit Racing - they agreed to take them back even though they had been installed. Since I hadn't actually driven on them they were OK with the return. I'll be buying more stuff from them just because of this kind of service. Anyhow, after searching this section of the forum, I ordered ESPO+2 leaf springs. Here's a pic showing the right side Mopar HD vs the ESPO +2 leaf springs:
You can really see the difference in the arch of the ESPO springs. Installed you can still see that arch:
At first I thought they were waaaaaay too high. The springs have been on the car about a week now and seem to have settled about an inch from the initial ride height. Alot of that was during the first drive. Here's a pic of the wheel well with the new springs on:
The ride height is a little higher than I'd like, but since it'll be a while until we put new wheels and tires on (lots of stuff to fix before this), this setup will allow us to drive the car. When we get our new wheels we may install a lowering block to get the ride height where we want it (if needed).
The new springs let me remove the air shocks that were on the car when purchased. The ride is definately improved over the old springs and air shocks. The previous owner said the air shocks were brand new, so if anyone wants them for cheap they are available.
Thats all I can think of for now. Later!
Topic: Had a little fun with Leaf Springs (Lots of Pics) (Read 8183 times)
