Hello Hambers, I was bumbling around with my 1992 Roadmaster wagon and needed to use a car hauler to grab some Chevy x-frames about 80 miles away. When I hooked the trailer up to the trusty Buick Wagon, with new $90 stock rear springs from rockauto, it was tail dragging bad but good enough to get the empty trailer from my friends place to my home. I have a '61 LeSabre that been a long term 'one piece at a time' project but starting to see light. I had cut a hoop or two out of the front coils when I built the front end to lower it. The rear on the other hand, these Buicks have the tight pig tail coil on both ends of the spring just like the 1992. The '61 sat super high in back and now jamco and other manufacturers have stopped producing lowering springs and just limited to coil over set ups, bags or hydros. And spending lots of money on those set ups. I decided to see if the rear springs would swap from a 1961 Buick Lesabre to 1992 Buick Roadmaster wagon. And they are a perfect swap! Not only did it drop the LeSabre nicely it turned the Roadmaster into a bad*** tow beast. So long story long you can lower these 1960's Buicks for around $100 bucks with a haircut on the fronts and b body 1992 era full size rear springs! Hope this helps as there is not as much info on these cars. The gold springs are the '61 spring in the '92. Black springs are the $89 Rockautos in the '61 ✌️
That’s some great info! I dropped both , my 61 and 64, in the rear by cutting the pigtail and a coil out and fabbing an adapter for the now too big spring end. I wish I knew about this 15 years ago
I bought springs from Eaton Detroit Springs. Same rate as original but with 2" drop. The biggest improvement you will make to this car is to pie cut the upper control arms and move the upper ball joints back at least 3/4" to get some positive caster in it. It came from the factory with negative caster but that causes the car to wander at higher speeds. Edited for brain fart.
Not surprised. I've used sixties a body rear springs on non f41 80s g bodies to both stiffen rear suspension and actually drop them about a half inch. Keep in mind the sixties era gm front springs tend to be a smaller diameter coil
That's interesting that the 61 Buick springs are different than a 61 Chevy. Been working on lowering out 61 Impala with its stock springs and has different ends. Those springs are more like what's in my C10
I also tried the Belltech lowering springs that I had for my 1992 Buick Roadmaster but the springs are so stiff it does not let the suspension travel enough to get a tire in the wheel well. I guess you could unbolt the spring to let the diff drop enough to slip a tire in then rebolt the spring but that sounds like a lot of trouble. Here's a shot of the stock '61 rear coil in gold, replacement factory spring for '92 Buick Roadmaster wagon in black and the silver is the Belltech Roadmaster/Caprice lowering spring. All three fit in the '61 Lesabre.
Hello everyone, I am brand new to H.A.M.B. The primary reason I joined is because I saw this article thread online while looking for rear lowering coil springs for my 1959 Buick LeSaber. I dropped the front end of the car using Fat Man 2-inch drop spindles and cut the stock coils for another 1-inch drop for a 3-inch total drop. I have now been working on lowering the rear end and wanted to do it with a drop coil spring vs. air bags etc. But it has been rather difficult to find an easy coil spring swap to do this with. I was wanting to drop the rear end 3 inches as well. I saw this article and wanted to ask, by swapping the 1992 Buick Roadmaster Wagon real coils into the 61 Buick LeSaber what kind of drop did you get? From the pictures it looks good but before I proceeded in this direction I was wondering if you might be able to quantify in inches what kind of drop you were able to achieve. I am sure these rear springs would fit my 59 Buick LeSaber based on the research I was able to do.
Hello, I think it dropped the car 3 to 3.5 inches on my '61. The stock spring measures 19.5" out of the car and the speck on the moog spring is 16.13". In old pictures of my '61 the wheel arch is North of the white wall. From the top of whitewall measured 23.5" to the ground and the wheel arch now measures 19". It made my LeSabre sit low but not dragging. I should have taken better before and after measurements! I think this will work out well for you. Good luck!
Hello NICK, Am I correct in guessing your LeSabre has no Engine/Trans etc? I'm curious how a full load car ('64 Wildcat) would sit, ride, & handle with the Roadmaster rear springs. For sure, a more economical route than custom springs.
Hello, yes the pictures I took don't have the motor and trans installed. I have a 425 and sp400 and when installed it sits fairly level. The Roadmaster wagon is about the same as the heaviest '61 as far as weight, so load duty should be no problem. The Roadmaster weighs in around 4,400lbs and '60s Buicks look around 3,900-4,400. I say do it before they disappear!
Thanks for your reply, Nick! I am ordering the springs today! Will let you know how they turn out but am confident from your information it will be just the ticket I was looking for!
The Jalopy Journal
