camdon454

My Cutlass has a noticeable lean to the drivers side. Reciepts i have from when i purchased the car show that the coil springs were replaced. Iv'e read that the tightening may have been done without weight on the springs which could cause this. If this is true, can i simply lift the car, loosen everything and start over properly? Thanks all

Allan R

It's not the springs you're talking about, it's the control arms. They must be tightened with the weight of the car on them. Generally if they were tightened without weight on them the whole back end would be riding higher. Highly unlikely that someone undid the CA's just to change springs though.

How long has the lean been there?

camdon454

Its been there since i bought the car almost 3 years ago. I may be swapping in a 3:91 posi I picked up with a complete trailing arm package, but until then I was hoping to just remedy the problem. I'm in Canada too eh, so 6 months driving is all i get. Im hoping to be able to go to a shop on an afternoon for a quick fix, I'm not interested in tearing anything down until the winter. Thanks for the info

oldcutlass

Trailing arms and a rear end swap is basically a nice weekends worth in the garage with basic hand tools. Your height issue could be as simple as spring orientation being wrong.

Allan R

Where in Canada?

If you do go with that new rear end, make sure you change out the bushings before installing.

re: sag - You MIGHT have a mismatched set of springs or one that's given up the ghost. The rear springs are supposed to have a rubber isolator on the upper end, and the coil has a specific orientation.

Also look at your front (yup) passenger side lower control arm spring pocket. Check to see if the RF spring is properly positioned. If the coil is not seated properly in the offset coil 'pocket' it can raise the front r.s. by about an inch, resulting in a left rear tilt by about the same amount.

camdon454

Whoa! Good info thanks! I'm in southern B.C in a city called Trail. I haven't updated my profile or added pictures yet. I should learn to do that, much easier to post a picture than explain. Which bushings are you talking about? The rebuilt end I have has new bushings off of the top of the pumpkin.