Shock mounts in an odd situation

For such a little and near insignificant tech piece, this is really long, but it helps clarify the reason for the tech submission.

As much as I love my coupe, when I’m driving it I cringe at the prospect of hitting even the smallest of bump because the coupe tended to ride not much better than an old hay wagon. Well, things are gonna change. A couple weeks ago I put new front tires on it and the very next day, I proceeded to break a front shock mount. After looking at it closer, I’m convinced it was a faulty mount, not the tires.

But this got me even more irritated about the ride from the back of the car since the addition of the new, slightly larger front tire helped out up there quite a bit. So, upon further review of the rear suspension, I realized a couple things;

First, when I had my friend Rick, the race car chassis builder of Doom, weld my mounts to the axle housing, I told him to do what he wanted. That was bad; for me. Don’t get me wrong about Rick. He’s the chassis god around here. He knew that I was building a period car that was taking on the look of an early 60’s street car that would be as much at home on the drag strip. With that in mind, he put them exactly where a serious drag racer would demand them; making the shocks stand at a 90 degrees. Well, for a nice riding car, this is wrong. Drag guys don't give a damn about ride quality. All they want is for the car to squat to transfer that weight baby. Mine will do that... and the ride suffers horribly for it.

Second, the shocks that came with the car were too long. The ride height was 9” from top to bottom of the shock. The shock, fully compressed was 9.5” Anything larger than a pencil and the shocks would bottom out; not good at all. With all the driving that I did with it like this blew out one shock completely and pretty well started on the other.

So my options are limited to a couple things; finding these incredibly short shocks that are only sold in chrome and are like $50 each or change the mounting location, either top or bottom. Top mounts are out of the question because they’re tied into the cross member too much structurally. So the last is the bottom mount. I, in jest told my brother John that I would just extend that to give me a taller ride height for a longer shock, but that would prolly look pretty dorky.

While lying under the coupe late last Friday night, I started moving the shock around while hanging from the top mount to try to find the right angle and length. I found it. Below is the right side mount that I fabbed up and mocked up for the photo. After doing all the clean-up on my not-so-great welds, that thing took me 2 hours to make, but it works and looks pretty cool all smoothed out. It’s made of all ¼” plate, so it’s solid. The left side took me a mere 45 minutes. They are currently painted and hung, waiting for shocks. Oh and the shocks will be the same off the shelf Monroes that were on the car and run $19 EACH!!! So now, the angle is real close to the standard of 20 degrees and the ride height is 11.5”. This should ride much closer to a big boat like an Impala then the aforementioned hay wagon. And as for my fear of looking dorky; once they were painted and neatly tucked up near the other suspension components, they blend in completely and clear all the other components by about a 1/4".

And in the truest of the hot rodding spirit, this little venture cost me NOTHING but time and brain power. All the steel stock was from my days working at a machine shop and they let me keep the drops! Ok, I did have to buy welding wire halfway through the first mount, but I’d need that sooner or later anyway.

The bottom bolt where my new bracket mounts to the old mount was where the shock WAS located. The difference is amazing from just this one mount. I’m pretty happy with the idea.

So, here they, actually it is. They are both really done.

 

Every degree of angle causes a lose of dampning of the shock. idealy two inch from pulling aprt and three inch from bottoming out out is my goal.

 

So then how does my stack up from a first impression and not measuring it look? Keep in mind I haven't driven it yet.

 

Looks like a good fix.

Perhaps a little more grinding to make it a touch swoopier.

Do you have a rubber snubber for when the axle bottoms out?

It makes a big difference and is considered part of the suspension....

 

Well, like I said, these are the mock up pix and they have been refined a little in that direction. I did wanna keep some of the bulk making it harder to flex or bend.

And no, I don't have any snubbers but I will shortly. one of those things the inexperienced never think of. Thanks.