More scary ass modifications

Im kinda darey when it comes to mechanical work, mostly because im no mechanic at all and do most of the stuff i do by intuition, of course i have sum general knowledge and know where my limits are, but overall i also do stupid ****......that said, this is kinda over the top and prolly nobody w/ sum minimum common sense woulda done it.
I know they do sell spring compressing units similar to those on JCWhitney catalog, but they aint supposed to hold a cut spring 2gether, i suppose it either broke for too much pressure or it didnt lower the front enuff so they came up w/ this brilliant idea.....but (gettin back to spring compressor ****) i would never trust those in my car and i dont see how that stuff could even have the TUV sticker on its package!!!??
Well, anyway, i also run on cut springs, front n rear, front is mild and rides well, afterall cuttin a couple of inches inproves the ride of an old car, while the back is hacked and rides like ****.Of course when ive done it i thought it would have been temporary stuff for like a few months until i could afford air bags or juice....problem is that more than a year later i am broke because of this ****ty economy we have now and im waitin on insurance money to do the upgrade while i hope everytime i take a pothole that nothin brokes or that the spring doesnt come out of its seat !!!!!
Bottom line: Wait till you got the cash to do it properly! No matter how bad the car looks jaked up by the previous owner or in stock "4x4" stance, its not worth bending the frame w/ gaps that will start to get uneven w/ doors closing consequently.....
Just my 2 eurocents.
Peace, Nick.

 

Back in '66 I had em on my '59 Ford sedan to lower it. Not a problem and only noticed slight change in the suspension travel and ride. I removed them from the sedan and put them on my '59 Ford rag top, reversed the clamps to jack up the front to make the car a "g***er". I also removed the front bumper and grill and painted the car spray can primer grey. Then the cops started to notice me and I got into some trouble. I worked in Yosemite and got noticed by a federal magistrate who threw me out of the park. I guess they thought I was some kind of young hoodlum....... No, just a rebel child.

 

Silly, silly, silly...everyone knows the proper method of lowering is to get four wooden blocks of the same height as your desired ride stance, then heat the springs until desired effect is achieved...sheesh

 

I still have em. I use them to compress the spring when I gotta do a ball joint. I was too broke in the younger days to afford anything as cool as that anyway.
I did have a neighbor who bought a 66 cj type jeep that rode REAL hard. Some clown of the same ins***ute as our topic aces had drilled and installed angle iron instead of shocks.
Good stuff out there.

 

I'll admit it. I had some on Fairmont in the late 70s. They worked fine for about 2years/30,000 miles until I sold the car. Mind you, I didn't use them to mend a broken spring, nor did I try to weld a spring. I just used them to lower the front a couple of inches and they worked fine. I won't use them now because I know the correct way to lower a car, but for a kid in high school, they did fine. That set up, however, is down right FRIGHTENING!

 

It amazes me how so many are scared because a car has broken coil springs. Fact is, the spring wraps around the shock, so other then being low/short, its likely not going to fall out and kill anyone. I find the weld and the spring bracket "interesting", but at least someone was trying. When you have no money, and need to go to work, you do what you have to. Replacing that spring at the local Walmart Auto Service Center would probably be a $500 bill, if they would even touch it. I agree its not right, but being under so many cars that were really messed up as I have been recently, that one is minor. If this one scares you, you would be terified to see some I've seen the past few months. There are cars and trucks running around out there with less metal holding the frame together then whats holding that spring together, unfortunately, you have to have something to weld to. Gene

 

Look's like OCC (Orange County Clown's) work to me!

 

I ran one beater for a year with at least one broken coil and never knew it. Had to have an A-arm replaced on it because it was rotting through. The frame on that car had been patched up in the back with 1/4 plate strips with bird**** looking welds to hold them on up to about the axle. I parked it when the frame rotted through on the top and the bumper was sagging down like 8 inches from the body.

I think I'd rather have had springs like those to contend with than the rotty frame. When I parted it out to s**** it, I only had to cut down the sides of the quarters, and the entire tail panel came off in my hands without cutting any of the trunk floor.

 

you don't get it do you? if you have a broken spring,your car won't handle right and you get in things like wrecks, or if it breaks while driving,and you kill the person you hit, gonna explain to their family how you couldn't afford that 500 dollars? there is no excuse to go around with broken suspension parts.

 

lostforawhile, you hit it on the head. Doing some **** work may allow you to physicially drive your car around, but when it comes down to possibly avoiding an accident or some situation where the stresses on the affected piece are tested, work like this fails and sometimes people get killed. Eventually, work like this will kill someone and get noticed and our hobby will be over regulated to death making it a pain even for people doing good work to keep doing it and enjoying it.
If you happen to see someone doing ****/unsafe work ask them not to **** up our hobby.

 

I'm ashamed to admit it but I ran 'em back in 1981 on my 1970 Buick Riviera.

 

I'd pay good money to see you jack the car up and cut those clamps off with a sawzall... i'm just sayin'...

 

In 1973 my friend Bob and I changed the couls on his dad's ltd. We went into the house and got a coke leaving the spring compressed. Loud bang, house shook. Bob's Dad,"WTFFFFF"!!! Hole in roof, spring across the street. HAHA, not then though.
Thetre was a cartoon in the 70's that had a kid in a POS and a suspension part broke and he went into the ditch. It had an impact on me. When I buy anotyher pos I look at the brakes and sus. Then go to the motor. I have 3 cars that have great suspension and brakes and no motor.

 

Yea I bought one of those kits for a comet once but had some issues with it and had to put some good tack welds on it OH NOT REALLY just had to jump in .

 

While on patrol one night I saw a POS pickup coming up to a red light. The truck pulled so hard to the right, it almost jumped the curb. I was bored, so I pulled him over, thinking he might be drunk. He was stone sober, but stupid enough to tell me that he had been having trouble with some broken brake lines, so he had crimped the leaking ones off. I looked underneath and sure enough, he had three of them cut and folded back on themselves and crimped with vicegrips. All he had was the right front brake working, and it had a leaking cylinder. Got a little upset when I called for the tow truck. Yep, they're out there, and breeding.

 

Geez...cops are ****s. He had ONE brake working. Its always the man opressing us.......

 

My guess is that spring broke well after that clamp was installed.

Thats just it, you could buy them at any parts store. Did just that on by 66 mustang. Front clamps, and longer rear shackles.

Yes I will.
Yes they did.
Didn't notice a change in the ride.
No.

 

I came back to Ga from the service in the mid 80's. Radically lifted 4x4's where all the rage. I kept seeing a guy run around town with one of the tallest trucks I had ever seen. One day I got a good close up look at it. What I saw made me want to ask him WTF. He had used 8" structural I beams with no shocks and no springs on the front and on the back he used uni strut to lower his leaf springs and galvanized pipe to extend his steering. The I beams where held on with 1/2" threaded rod. He used wood blocks to lift the body. The angle on his drive line was almost 90 degrees. The brake lines where hard lines hanging down to the diff's. I asked who had did all of the modifications and he proudly told me that he did and how much money he had saved. (yes he had a mullet) He asked me if I knew of a good U joint brand, cause every one he had tried was ****. (wonder why) I heard that he got tired of paying fines for exsessive bumber height and had either parked it or dropped it back to stock. Worse one i have ever seen.

 

i have never used them , my friend had them on his 69 chevelle convert in high shcool never noticed anything different about the ride
not like the rock hard ride you get from fully inflated airshocks

would i use them sure why not

i do use the dredded silver twist in spacer nuts i have them in 2 of my cars right now

guys, in some left handed backward way these parts and others like them is where the ratrods (especailly the real trashy unsafe ones) all got started from

but these parts have been on the matket for YEARS if they had any kind of bad fatallity rate or something do you think theyd still be on the market? they would of either stopped selling them from public out cry or people would of figured out hey these things arent worth a **** and stopped buying them and telling thier friends not to buy them

 

Guy that worked at the same place I did had a tie rod end drop off at work....he wired it back togather....died on the way home.
RIP

 

I more then "get it" and I fully understand how suspension works. So how many guys are still cutting coils or heating them with a tourch to drop the car? The difference between the guy that cuts or tourches the coils is that he is suppose to know better, the guy that doesn't have a clue other then "something broke and they want $500 to fix it, but it still drives so maybe next month we can get it fixed," just doesn't know any different. From the pictures posted, we really have no proof which way the "spring job" happened, all we have is speculation.

All that is besides the point I was making. That spring job is far less scary then many things I've seen in the last few months. On the safety standpoint, the spring is already broken and the car already handles like ****. The driver already knows that. The biggest danger is if the broken spring pieces fall onto the road and can be run over by someone. Compare that to a frame that has rotted in nearly into two pieces and is just hanging together waiting for that next big bump. Most failures happen slowly, over time. The ones that cause problems are the ones that happen suddenly, most people adapt after the sudden thing is over. The failed spring has already happened, a rotted frame is still waiting become a sudden happening. Though both need attension, I have arrived to the point where I'm more concerned over things that are about to fail suddenly, then things that have deterated over time and are now a less then desired situtation. I fix the things that need to be fixed on my vehicals, but there have been times when you adjust your driving because of something that may not be quite right because the money (or time) to fix it simply is not there at that point.

My truck needs a carb rebuild, it backfires and stumbles bad. It could stall if I pulled out in front of someone and I could get into an accident. I drive accordingly, the carb kit can be ordered Friday, and it will be in by Mon, but I probably won't be able to rebuild it until mid next week. Between now and then I'm still driving it if I need to go someplace. Now, if it had a frame about to break in 1/2, that would be a different story. For all I know, there may be a leaf to 2 broken in one of the spring packs, maybe I'll look tomorrow, but I'd still drive it even with a broken spring. Gene

 

Yes drive accordingly that is the answer, of course if its guys like us w/ sum sense of what were doin that is obvious, after all other than having way shorter springs in the back i also have a bent (not much but enuff to pull to one side if i leave the wheel) K member due to an idiot that stopped suddenly in front of me and i had to hit the curb to avoid him, of course i know it and drive accordingly, i also have a new one in the shop but im waitin for new suspension parts, bags or juice, just that i dont have to take it apart twice!More than the actual job its the alignemet that scares me!
Problems start when its people who doesnt know **** and do improper stuff for not knowin what their doin or worse when theyre to busy wantin to be kool to think about consequences....

All in all i agree w/ all ya said.

 

I didn't mean to jump on you, i'm from Ohio and i've seen a lot of dangerous cars with broken suspension parts on the road, i've had friends die due to things like that,so i tend to get a little bit worked up.

 

OH, cool. I was wondering who bought my old car, so you dont like it? Better not look at the tie rods, you can tack weld them on...................Right?

 

This was the former owner's idea of suspension work on my 62 C10 (2WD) when I got it. Needless to say, those came out of there within the very first hour of owning it. Yes, those are 2X4 chunks sitting vertically in the spring coils.

 

Just wondering how many, that has used these devices, or knows people that have,
(for what they were intended for, not piecing a broken spring together)
has had problems with them breaking springs, or other problems????

Cause as I said before, I used them, and never had any problems, with breakage, rough handling, or anything at all.

Ok OK OK, I had to edit, and confess, that I dug thru my junkpile, and found a old set of these!! And I thought weellllll it wouldn't hurt to put them on my 51, just to see what it would look like, of course!!!!
They drop the front end a couple of inches, and the old chevy looked much better, with the headlights, not pointing at the tops of the telephone poles!!

But I took them back out, until I could get some "First Hand" r&d testimonials, from you people.

It seems to me, from lurking around on here for years, that alot of people on here don't have nearly as much trouble, laying their hands on extra bucks, as I do.

I am just a poor ol (I do mean old now) boy, with a blue collar job, and a family, and plenty plenty bills!!!
But I don't want to cobble anything up that's unsafe, but my finances dictates, that I have to try to save a buck when I can.

Shadetree

 

they can cause the springs to break,due to them concentrating the forces on the suspension in one area. for an example get a small coil spring, now bind a couple of the coils together and start flexing the spring, all the jounce and rebound wil try to concentrate in one spot.

 

A new definition of the term "suicide frontend"