Raising (not lowering)

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May 5, 2010 | 04:48 PM

#76

Doraville

Thread Starter

Tuned

Joined: Apr 2008

Posts: 485

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Quote:

Originally Posted by AXracer

Doroville,
On all the HAMB posts they are trying to correct too much camber, not too little which is the problem you are trying to correct....
Are you sure the offset shafts you used helped give you more caster? They should have moved the upper control arm pivot towards the center of the chassis or the lower control arm away depending on which they went on. If they were ment to correct "sag" then they would be backwards for your application. Can you post a picture of your upper and lower control arm mounting arrangement?

I went back and reread the HAMB posts, and unless I'm crazy (which is always a possibility) they are talking about adding positive camber (correcting for too much negative camber) which is the same problem that I have.

The offset shafts can be installed either way... to move the upper control arm toward the wheels (which would add positive camber) or toward the engine (which would add negative camber). We installed them to add positive camber and they did, just not enough to give us any additional caster adjustment. Those pins only give you about one degree of camber, which isn't much but was enough to compensate for the 1" taller springs.

So, I was "camber-challenged" when I started. I installed offset pins and one inch taller springs (which kind of cancelled each other out).

Jun 21, 2010 | 10:19 AM

#77

wmw

Freshman User

Joined: Jul 2008

Posts: 32

Likes: 0

FYI

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doraville

Young Harris is in the other direction (northeast). You're right, it is a beautiful area.

No, I'm after a "somewhat stock look". I put smoothies with the script Ford hubcaps, but they're 8" wide with P275/60R15 on back, P23570R15 on front. Not very stock-looking, but more stock-looking than the Cragars that were on it when I bought it.

The paint job is not as good as it appears in the photos. I'm taking it back to it's original color, Sheridan Blue (soon I hope).

Peace,

The following code is for a 53 F100 I recently had touched up which is original color. PP&G code (10428) is not original color. It is too light although picture of chip is correct on color chart. Correct code is; Sheridan Blue Paint Code for the 53 F100 is Color Code B/Duco 864/Dulux 93-81501

Jun 30, 2010 | 08:46 AM

#78

Doraville

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Tuned

Joined: Apr 2008

Posts: 485

Likes: 2

After a year, over 1700 read's, and 76 posts, I'm finally ready to put this thread to bed. For the benefit of future travelers down this road, here is a quick recap:

I bought a '52 F1 in June of '09 that had a lot of the things that I wanted (late model IFS, drive-train), and a few things that I didn't want (lowered suspension, crappy transmission), so I set out to fix what I didn't like and keep what I liked.
The truck had a frame-splice from a '79 Monte Carlo (or other GM G Body) that had been installed by a previous owner. The frame-splice appeared to be well done, however it resulted in the truck being lowered about an inch. The previous owner had removed several leaves from the rear springs to bring the rear down to match the front. Nothing against lowering, but I really prefer the stock stance on these trucks, plus the weakened rear springs were allowing the axle to wrap during acceleration. I also noticed that the truck tended to "wander" when driving down the road, so I assumed that it had something to do with the frame-splice.
My first attempt at correcting the ride-height failed. For the front, I ordered a set of big-block springs out of a catalog, and I took the rear leaf springs to a local spring shop who installed a helper leaf to stiffen it up and raise the ride height. This gave me the ride-height that I wanted, but resulted in the truck being stiff-as-a-board.
The second go-around, I used the Moog coil spring sizing chart to select a set of springs with the specs that I needed, and then ordered the springs from Rock Auto. On the rear, I removed the helper leaf that the spring shop had installed, shortened it, and moved it further down in the stack. These two changes gave me the ride-height that I wanted with a reasonable-but-still-firm ride. I may tweak it some more at a later date, but for now it's good.
On further examination, the "wandering steering" was due to lack of caster. This could have been due to a sagging cross-member, or because the people who did the frame splice didn't pay enough attention to caster when installing it. As a side-note, I have discovered that a lot of front-end alignment guys tend to ignore caster (maybe because normally it doesn't change?). Because the upper A arms on the Monte Carlo's attach on the inside of the frame, adding shims to get more caster will subtract camber, and I didn't have any camber to spare. After some debate and much deliberation, I decided that the best solution was to take it to a frame shop and have them spread the cross-member to give me enough camber so that shims could be added to get the caster that I needed. Good frame guys are a dying breed, but after a lot of asking-around I found a guy that understood what I needed and was able to do it. He spread the cross-member about an inch, which gave the alignment guy the camber that he needed to adjust the caster. The truck now drives as it should.

Even though it took a year to get to the end, I should mention that I haven't been working on this for a year. I worked on these issues on and off again along with the other aspects of the build. Now that this part of it is finished, there are a few conclusions that I have drawn from the experience:

Before buying this truck, the Monte Carlo IFS would not have been my first choice and it still would not be my first choice. But it is still a reasonable choice. Donors are still abundant in the junk yards, and parts are readily available and cheap. The biggest issue with this IFS conversion, as with any IFS conversion, is to make sure that it is installed correctly. The pre-engineered IFS kits take care of this by providing reference points. If you go with an IFS from a donor vehicle, whether it's a frame-splice or a bolt-on/weld-on, then you have to figure out how to make sure that it is square and has the right amount of caster and camber.
Some people on this forum have had good luck with spring-shops, but my experience was not good. Without a referral, it's really luck-of-the-draw. Whether it's leaf or coil springs, my advice is to educate yourself as much as possible so that you know whether or not the spring shop is asking you the right questions in order to give you a good job. If you educate yourself enough, you should be able to order springs from an online supplier and save some money while making sure that it's done right.
Ditto for frame-shops. There just aren't that many people left who know how to work on this old stuff. I was lucky enough to find an old-timer who had done this kind of thing before and was able to take care of me. This is going to become more and more difficult as time goes by.

I'd like to thank everyone who followed this thread and offered suggestions on what to do next. You guys are the best!

Feb 24, 2012 | 10:33 AM

#79

tip49

Cargo Master

Joined: Sep 2004

Posts: 2,757

Likes: 138

From: Alberta Canada

Raise it up; Doraville

I'm at the stage where I now want to tweak the front ride height; I'll get the truck on the road first but am researching.

Doraville, can you hear me .. how did you make out with your ride issue ? I am curently running Moog 8542 coils on the front end, which are about 9.5" inches loaded and 13.5" unloaded. I think I'd like taller coils to raise the front 2-3 inches.

I contacted Moog and am waiting on reply as to what , if anything they recommend. I'll go to a local suspension shop before I pull the trigger.

Tom

Feb 24, 2012 | 11:14 AM

#80

Doraville

Thread Starter

Tuned

Joined: Apr 2008

Posts: 485

Likes: 2

I'm still here. After MUCH trial-and-error, I finally got the ride height/stiffness pretty much like I wanted it. You can in fact use the Moog spring specs chart to select a set of springs with the spring rate and unloaded spring height to get the ride that you're looking for. At least it'll get you in the ballpark.

It's been over a year since we finished the work on the suspension, so I'm sure that I've already forgotten more than I knew in the first place. All I can say is that there are a lot of nuances to suspension tuning. For example, you can't always raise the vehicle by x amount by simply buying a set of springs with a taller unloaded height because you may have to compress them to get them into the A-arms, which means that the taller unloaded height really didn't buy you anything. It takes a combination of spring rate and unloaded spring height to get where you want to be.

Hopefully you won't have to go through as much experimentation as I did. If you can think of any specific questions, ask them and I'll try to go back and look over my notes and tell you what we did.