costpenn

I cant begin to describe how much I hate installing front coil springs. I fought this for two days and thought I had them in correctly, so this morning I was merrily installing front end parts and noticed this. I could swear this was mounted in the pocket correctly. Does it swing out a lot when the suspension is loaded because right now the shock is almost touching the spring. Arrgg....

Gary's 2 442-S

I just took at look at my coil springs on my 68 and with the body off the frame mine looks about in the same position as yours. I have not begun to restore the frame but as it sits right now, I see not much difference in yours.

costpenn

Thank you Gary. Anyone else on this? It would really suck to finish assembling it and find out the spring is not correctly positioned.

Hairy Olds

Put the tire on and bounce the car for a bit and see if the spring settles in.

costpenn

Got some good lighting and looked up into the pockets - the RH Spring is not positioned correctly. I'm going to try loosening the ball joint nuts as much as possible without breaking everything apart and see if by hitting the spring with a BFH and a block of wood I can get it to slide into place.

Run to Rund

On 68-up, the top of the coil is "square" and direction doesn't matter. On the bottom, the end of the coil should be between the two inspection holes and close to the end of the formed pocket. I strongly doubt you can rotate the spring without lowering the a arm a lot after popping the ball joint stud loose. I don't like the job either, and when I built the Rund car, I hoped I wouldn't have to do it again. About 10 spring changes later, I think I have gotten there.

costpenn

Hello Joe! We were just talking about you last weekend at the Zone show. I lucked out this morning - I hit the spring as detailed above and it popped right into place with a loud "TWANG".

Octania

So, now it hits the shock OK?

:-)

Love1955oldsmobile

I would suggest thinking about coil and leaf springs a little differently. 98 springs will serve as heavy duty springs for 88 even if they are tired. Big buick and caddy coil springs are heavy duty fot the 98 coils. On leaf springs buy a used set and use a leaf in your springs. Speaking from personal experience my 55 88 has rear leaf 98 springs from a 53 98 with a/c. It sets up higher. Also on coils you can use spring spaces to restore height. People in the fifties were furgle. Cheaper to use a dollar spacer than a 50 dollar coil spring. Also convertable coils and leafs fit as heavy duty on sedans and holdays. leaf spings from a 1959 88 for a 1955 88 will be heavy duty as the 1959 was a heavier car in general. A Hollander will give details on cheap interchanges as will the parts manual. Just my 2 cents worth. Ron

redoldsman

This is a five year old thread but you do provide some good info. Thanks