Rear Suspension is Installed!



I finally got the rear suspension mounted and lined up. Although I’m using some pretty stout fixtures to tension the pieces, it always makes me nervous when things are under so much load before it’s all secured.

Even after the leaf spring is flattened by the bar, I had to figure out a way to attach the bottom locating arm to the lower spring perch. The holes didn’t just line up even with the top bar connected, so I had to tension the spring again until I could get a bolt through the holes.

I ended up making another strap to tension the spring and yet give me clearance to attach the lower bar. If this isn’t making any sense, don’t worry, it’s done and everything in installed. Unless you have to do this kind of work yourself, be happy you don’t!

One of the most important pieces to the rear spring tension is keeping the rear axle from dropping too far down by adjusting the limiting cable length. Getting this length wrong, and the spring compressor will have to go back on with a lot of cursing!

To keep the ends from fraying, I soldered the ends.

The cable is cut to length and prevents the axle from drooping too far down. With everything mounted and bolted together, I lowered the suspension to tension the limiting cables watching for how far the rear axle dropped. It’ll take a few days or weeks with some weight in the car to settle the rear of the car, but at least the rear suspension is done!