I redid my entire front suspension about 2 years ago and put 1 1/2" drop coil springs in it. I recently read that one should allow the car to bear weight on the wheels before tightening everything back up. Well, I honestly can't remember if I did that or not and I have heard a "boing" noise in the front passenger side when I jack the car up which I'm assuming is the coil spring. Guess I have a couple questions:

1. Should I jack the car up, loosen whatever I should loosen, drop it back down and tighten everything up?

2. What might be making that coil spring bind on the front passenger side that it lets loose when I jack that side of the car up?

Thanks

If you tighten your lower control before setting all the weight on the ground first, you will put a pre load on the bushings in the lower control arm and cause the car to set higher than it's supposed to. Just loosen the bolts on the lower control arm on both sides, bounce the car a few time to let it settle in and tighten with all the weight of the car on the ground.


The coil bind might be the bushings preloaded like I mentioned above, and when you jack the car up, the pressure from the spring goes ahead and forces it all the way down after you get the car off the ground.



Rocky

If you tighten your lower control before setting all the weight on the ground first, you will put a pre load on the bushings in the lower control arm and cause the car to set higher than it's supposed to. Just loosen the bolts on the lower control arm on both sides, bounce the car a few time to let it settle in and tighten with all the weight of the car on the ground.

The coil bind might be the bushings preloaded like I mentioned above, and when you jack the car up, the pressure from the spring goes ahead and forces it all the way down after you get the car off the ground.



Rocky
Same issue with upper control arm bushings as well. This only applies to rubber bushings though. Rubber bushings are bonded to the inner sleeve. Poly bushings are not bonded to the sleeve and in fact should be greased. Poly bushings will spin on the sleeve, rubber won't so rubber can pre-load if tightened with no weight on the front end.

Are you sure your spring is sitting in the pocket properly.

I remember sitting the spring in the pocket so the end of the spring was positioned between two marks of some sort on the lower control arm. Does that sound correct?

And I bet I have preload like you guys are mentioning. I used rubber bushings but for the life of me can't remember if I tightened the control arms before or after I had the car back on the ground.

So I can't hurt anything by just loosening both the upper and lower control arms, bouncing the front end a few times and retightening?

Scott - at the time you put the springs in, did you remove the LCA? Because you didn't have too unless you were changing the bushings at the same time. You would have remembered trying to torque the LCA bolts on the ground. kind of a pita....

Also double check the perch. On my '67, the upper perch has a kind of indent for the tail. When that is in the right position, the lower tail would line up on one of the drain holes....

Is the boing more of a pop/boing? Next time it's in the air, check to see that the lower BJ is still seated properly. I suspect you are hearing it pop out of the LCA.

I redid the entire front suspension at the same time. New rubber bushings everywhere, new ball joints, powder coated the A-arms etc...... You've got me thinking though about torquing them on the ground because I do sor of remember only being able to tighten them a fraction of a turn at a time because of clearance.

I'll check the ball joint out but it doesn't seem like a pop first.......just the "boing".

I should try and post a picture of my car so someone could tell me if it really dropped it 1 1/2" because I feel the ride height is the same.

Maybe the ride heights are posted somewhere on here and I could measure mine?