I lowered my wagon today and i like it. Snipped a coil in the front and stuck a 2" block on the back. I haven't driven it yet. Still need to get some new shocks for the back. keith just the front is done in this pic
simple and clean. I totally dig it! Don't do anything else. Love the current stance and the look is right.
Looking good. Its hard to lower a falcon really low because of the way the lower a arm is made. It will hit the unibody. You did good.
They are, as soon as you get rid of the puny I6 and the "wait for it-wait for it" Ford-O-Matic 2 speed. Still miss my '62...
They are awesome drivers. I had a '63 that had 1.5 coils cut and stock in the rear that cornered like a slot car. It had a 170 I-6 and swapped in a C4 and a straight pipe. The 6 was a bit anemic, but it was great on gas.
They are great drivers. As some of you may--could conceivably--know, my daily driver for 10 years was a 1963 1/2 hardtop with a 289 and a cruisomatic, and it was a blast. Theo
it ain't that hard. i just ran out and got a few pics of my wagon, kinda tough, it's midnight, it's in the garage getting some bodywork done on the rear, plus a vehicle blocking the door, so it's kinda tough to gauge the lowness from the pics, but there it is with the bags dumped up front. the rear only has 3" blocks right now, so it has a big time rubber rake, but it's pretty damn low, if you look close in the pic of the suspension, you can see how low the pitman arm is. once the back is on air, that pitman arm is gonna be real close to the ground. you can also see what i did to improve the angle of the strut rod, i just made some spacers to mount the strut rod under the control arm.
How did you compress the springs to get them out and cut them? I can't seem to find a spring compressor that will fit safely. This is for my wife's 62. I already lowered the back about 5", just need to do about 3" in the front. By the way, your wagon looks great. Erron
i tried to use a spring compressor to but there too big. So i got advice from an old timer and he told me to use lots of hose clamps. I didn't like doing it but it worked. I also thought about buying the spring clamps advanced auto sells. When i got the spring out i put the real spring compresser on it. I used a cut off wheel on my die grinder to cut the spring. I probably had 10 clamps on the spring. yeah it was scary but it worked. would i do it again only if i had to keith
not to mention the name of the Devil on this hallowed ground, but snap-on has a coil spring compressor that works nice. Looks good! using a torch to heat the spring to get it to drop will destroy it. using a torch to remove portions of the spring leaves it largely unaffected. the thing to remember is any time you remove a portion of a spring (any spring) and expect it to carry the same load, the spring rate goes up. in plain english, your ride gets stiffer, and the rebound gets a little wonky. bad news in a pothole, good news at 70 on a nice flat chunk of Texas highway...
When I cut the coils on the front of my Galaxie I jacked the front of the car up and put it on stands. Then put a floor jack under the lower a-arm, jacked it up slightly and popped the lower ball joint out. Having a ball joint seperator that was really a ball joint seperator and not a tie rod fork was key to saving hours of time. And using it correctly! Then you lower the floor jack SLOWLY and the assembly just comes apart. Worked fine on my ride. Then just reverse the process to put the coil back in. No spring compressor needed. On ride quality - With 2 coil cut from the front of my 4200lb Galaxie it still rides like a plush ass caddy and I can't tell the difference ride wise on the road if it's any rougher than stock. I'm planning to take out another coil this spring, which I'll be sure to report on ride quality again then, but I don't think it will change much.
theres tho good ways on these cars. make a compressor, basically an off the shelf compressor with a flat plate fabricated to go on the top side of the shock/spring tower. the other is to remove the shock, put a chain through the center of the spring to keep it from flying and give it a good pry with a long pry bar, careful! i did the latter because compressing the springs to install wasn't an issue.
I've used that rout before but unfortunatly it won't work on falcons, the spring is attached to the upper control arm. I used regular old spring compressors to take mine out and worked just fine, just had to fiddle with it a little. Yah if you bottom out the suspension (no coils in the front, single leaf in the rear) everything will clear enough that you can physically drive it but the geometry will be all wrong and you'll destroy ball joints because of there excessive angles. Not to mension beat the crap out of yourself because there's no sorings LOL! Here is what mine looked like that way The biggest problem, as in my case, is getting lower! I want it to ride at this hight and be able to sit the frame on the ground with the air out. I've been doing a lot of thinking and I think I got everthing figured out. Should be fun
With Falcons, early Mudstangs and later Mav's etc that have the "spring superior " suspension, the spring compressor can be used through the upper shock mount to compress the spring against the top of the spring tower and then you remove upper A-arm bolts and move it out of way while you release the spring to get it out. 1) Remove the shock and upper mount bracket, 2) using the bottom (facing up) spring retainer fingers - set the compressor fingers in the spring near the bottom , 3) put the shock tower bracket on the threaded compressor rod sticking through the shock tower, 4) compress the spring against the top of the spring tower until suspension arms float. 5) suspension will now be unloaded and you can release the upper A-arm and then uncompress the spring to remove it. This is simpler to do than explain if you know the suspension in these cars. The typical internal spring compressors are hard to use in the spring towers and it's dificult to get the spring out once it's compressed unless the A-arm is released. This is the safest method I could figure - but I still use the chain through the spring SAFETY recommendation. Your results may vary.
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