steering and suspension Ride height thoughts

[chargin]

I recently replaced my Struts/Shocks + New springs. I'm about 15mm low in the back, would you Level the car at 1/2 tank or run 5mm high in the rear so at full tank your level?

[Mike Self]

A few thoughts....

• You did get the front springs in front and the rear springs in the rear didn't you (not a dumb question, it's been done before by knowledgeable folks!)

• When you did the front struts, did you remove the aluminum spacer?

• In the rear...do you have one, two or three dot upper rubber spring spacers?  (check archives if this isn't familiar to you).

My '69 rode around tail high for some years even before removing the front spacers; never did figure out the reason but it doesn't now, and the only things I've done to the suspension was installing Bilstein HD shocks and removing the front spacer...

 

cheers

mike

[AceAndrew]

To add one more to Mike's question.

 

Where are you measuring from? 

 

Sometimes you can get tricked by the car's lines or mistakenly measure the top of the wheel arch to the tire.  Measurement should be taken from the bottom rocker immediately behind the front wheel well and immediately in front of the rear.

[chargin]

All valid questions I didnt address
Aluminum spacers-No
Front to rear? - measured and found front spring were 6mm larger with 2 part numbers frt/rear

Dots- none

So I'm trying to decide 15mm or 20mm spacers for rear

Edited December 4, 2014 by chargin

[chargin]

All valid questions I didnt address

Aluminum spacers-No

Front to rear? - measured and found fronts 6mm larger with 2 part numbers frt/rear

Dots- none

So I'm trying to decide 15mm or 20mm spacers for rear

[chargin]

I measured from ground to bottom of wheel arch, so 15mm less in rear

[skipsfcr]

it also bears mentioning that a good many '02ers have trimmed a bit off of brand new aftermarket front springs to lower the front another 1/2"-3/4".

[chargin]

skipsfcr - Thanks for the input, I thought about that but the front looked OK now, the rear has almost NO gap.

[peterschop]

I think that most cars have a larger gap in the front than the rear. Did you take measurements before you made the changes? Maybe you had a 15mm gap before and didn't realize it. Take your measurement at both ends of the rockers. BTW, what did you use for shock/struts and springs?

[Hans]

what do you mean by "dots -none"?

[chargin]

Dots- None = lowest spring pad with no additional thickness

 

The springs I used were Vogtland 1.25" drop sport springs.

Edited December 5, 2014 by chargin

[Buckeye]

Why don't you post a couple pictures?

Lowest rear spring pad height = 1 dot = 28mm

[chargin]

Buckeye - I would post but I don't have a web based gallery to pull photos from

[M3M3]

I measured from ground to bottom of wheel arch, so 15mm less in rear

as others have said, first thing to do is measure the ride height from the front and rear ends of the rocker and compare those numbers.  measuring from the wheel arches is useless as they are different shapes.  front arch is higher than rear so that the front wheels have room to steer the car.

 

report back with the rocker height.

[chargin]

Thank you all for your input, I'll re-measure tomorrow in the daylight