Ok i have 2.5 in blocks in my 50 ford but i wanna drop it further! Heres what my box has underneith it it runs a turbo 350 trans with a 8in ford rear Im currious as to how much more till the shaft hits the floorboard!! Thanks RICH
noone can give you an exact answer. It all depends on how worn your springs are, how much weight is in it etc. etc. Your best best without seeign it is trial and error. Try a 4 inch block and see what happens. I would have the springs de arched 3 inches and start with no block if it was my car. Hope this helps. Travis
ya know thats exactly what i was thinkin but....I wanted to hear others people trial and errors!! right on Travis
I've never felt comfortable running more than a 2" block on anything. Creates to much leverage for the torque to wrap up the springs and change the pinion angle more than it should be. Like travis said, look into de-arching the springs, or getting some new ones that are already lowered before you go to adding blocks beyond what you have.
I have 4" 'o blocks on my 'box. If my wife rides with me(260# sorry hon),the driveshaft will bottom on hard bumps. Sparky
I can give you an answer. We had dearched rear springs and 2 inch blocks on our 51 coupe. Couldn't push a floor jack under the rear bumper. Also with a couple of people in it we hit the driveshaft on the driveshaft hump in the floor pan. Your problem is the driveshaft hump on a 50 floor pan isn't as high as a 51, hence, you will hit for sure. Altering the floor pan hump will be necessary if you use more than a 2 ich block. The other problem will be getting your rear tires off. You can solve that by jacking the car from the side on the frame in front of the wheel well. It lifts the whole side up and makes tire changing easy. Pat.
If your rear leaf springs are as old and cracked as mine were, you can get the 3" drop rear leafs from Jamco Suspension. That's what I picked up... I've yet to drive on them though so I couldn't tell you how they ride, I've heard good things.
I had 4in. blocks on my 51 & although the driveshaft never rubbed the floor it would hammer on the rubber bumpstops quite often. I installed an air shock kit & ran 15lbs of air in them & it rode great, especially on long trips. I had one of those little compressors you plug into a cigaretter lighter wired up & mounted in the trunk. It only came up about an inch but thats all it needed to ride better. I used to let it down at shows & cruises thats why I put the compressor in. When I took this pic the shocks were up. Billy
I have 3" blocks on my shoebox and saggin' 55 year old springs. It rides okay but I think I'm going to order some 4" drop springs for it.
4" block is the max you should go and still be in the safe range I have 4" blocks and dearched springs in my shoe. Tuck
Go to www.afcoracing.com and click on tech pages. Then click on an Leaf Spring Tech. Has excellent spring and lowering block info you want and more.
I've got a set of the Jamco 4" drop springs. Plus, I'm running a 4" block as well. It sits pretty damn low. Set of airshocks if I need to raise it a bit. Granted, this is in a 53 merc, which I guess you'd say is a younger cousin of the shoebox. I have a friend who is running 3" blocks in his 50 ford. The drive shaft is pretty close to the tunnel.
I pulled the first 3 leaves...the 3 shorter ones w/ 3" blocks...the rear was almost on the ground. remember this, if you go real low, you will have to modify the floor under the rear seat...it will rub on the driveshaft.
mine only rubs if im trying to get rubber in second... and its about as low as you can get. First time it happened I was like WTF was that... hahaha... sounded like I dropped the trans outta the car or ****ed up the rearend... and I've done that twice so far on 4:10's rearend #3 --so far so good... someone sell me a '57 9" please for a reasonable price. Tuck
Tuck, Sweet jeebus your shoe sits low! on an unrelated note, after my friend and I put the 3" blocks in his 50, I told him to take it around the block for a spin, too see how it felt. Well, about 10 minutes later he came crawling back at about 5 mph. Accompaning him was the most terrible grinding sound. He pulled back into my driveway, I asked what the hell happened. He said it started making that sound almost right away, thats why it took him 10 minutes to make the 60 second trip around the block. We jack the car up to try and figure just what the hell is going on. Well, the privious owner had installed seatbelts, and one of the bolts was directly over the drive shaft. And of course, they had the long side of the bolt pointing down. Without weight in the car, the bolt was about 1/2" from the shaft. With weight, it was pretty much touching. He had a nice, freshly ground stripe around the drive shaft. We flipped the bolt, and haven't had a problem since.
Thats excatly what i want to do too...My car has 4 inch maybe even 4.5 inch block i think there hand made anyways...I was thinking of putting in airshocks on my 55 ford,just to get it off the bump stops,I hit a bump and damm it hurts Bad.....My problem is im having a hard time finding air shocks for my car......
gabriel doesn't make air shocks for your car anymore, check epay. there's a guy on there thats been selling alot of hi-jackers for older cars at pretty good prices. or get a 39105 gabriel hi-jacker. fits a 57-58 ford, rear shock is the same as the 52-56 ford so they should work....
I have 4" blocks in the back of my '53, looks good but you have to drop the rearend to change the rear tires, so keep that in mind. When this picture was taken, I had some homemade lowering blocks in the car. After awhile, the car started to wander, and over time it got really bad. I figured my front end was going. Parked the car for two years, finally got it up on a hoist and found out that the front end was tight, the rear was getting squirrely because there weren't locating pins on the blocks. Scary ****, I put in some real ones now and it's much better.
Thanks for the info are they air shocks, I think i spoke to that guy already and i think your right he did say 57-58 ford would fit so i think thats the route im going to take thanks............
Here's some pictures of my car too..I think it might have something else done to it in the rear it sits very low........ http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2108481
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