Re-arcing & strengthening the rear leaf springs & front end work

Saturday February 24th 2007,
I removed the rear leaf springs to have them re-arced and strengthened. The rear dropped two inches after fitting two 55 litre LPG tanks in the trunk. The stance wasn't right before that & now the car can't even take the weight of passengers (bottoming out). I couldn't even get the floor jack under the car because the rear was so low (engine was out - weight shifted to the rear)! By the way, this was the toughest job yet! Laying on cold concrete floor, wrestling with nuts & bolts that haven't been loosened in 43 years... the axle and leaf springs aren't exactly light weight items either.

Saturday March 24th 2007
Everything that bolts to the rear leaf springs as been cleaned and painted with POR15. This will last. Perhaps a bit overkill, but I can't stand the thought of dirty & rusty parts going back on my car when I had a chance to clean 'm up.

Friday April 27th 2007,
New bushings arrived from Eaton Detroit Spring Eaton Detroit Spring so I had them pressed into the re-arced & strengthened rear leaf springs. I'm very pleased with the springs (see pics below). The man who worked on them - ome Leen (uncle Leen) at Eeltink Veertechniek - put an extra leaf in to take the weight of two 55 liter LPG tanks in the trunk, and compensate for forty years of gravity. In between the leafs nylon discs were inserted because the square (plastic?) originals were dried up and brittle. He also made the sturdier clamps you can see in the picture because he wasn't impressed at all with the originals. He also made new U-bolts because the old ones are now too short.

One of the brackets fell apart while I was cleaning it and dropped it on the garage floor. The welds just gave way so I had it welded back together.

Sunday May 6th 2007,
It was a lot of hard (and dirty) work but it paid of. The rear end is sitting way higher than it was before I had the rear leaf springs re-arced and strengthened. It's a bit too high at present but of course the leaf springs will settle a little and the engine is still out so I think the stance will look correct.

Before:

After

Four new shocks are standing by. They're made by Gabriel, cost $15 and are supposedly better than the Monroe Sensa Track which are three times as expensive and supposedly suck. The Gabriel PNs are:
82067 for rears
82615 for fronts

 
Front end work Saturday June 7th 2008,
A month ago my '64 developed a clanging - metal to metal - sound at the front when I drove over speed bumps, through small potholes or when breaking hard at low speed. As it turned out the left front strut rod bushing had broken into pieces:

I ordered a set of polyurethane strut rod bushings by Energy Suspension (#4.7118G) from Suspension Restoration Parts Co. $20 for a set that does both sides. They were great to deal with & were the only supplier on the internet that had them in stock. All the others would have to special order them from energy suspension which would take weeks. I could find none on eBay. Lincoln Land and Baker's Auto sell OEM rubber strut rod bushings by the way.

The MOOG sway bar/stabilizer bar link kit (MOOG # K6678) only does one side of the vehicle! So order two sets! I had to use the old metal sleeve because the one that came with the set was too long (couldn't get the nut on).

Page 06. Cleaning the interiour