[eaglesan13]

What about non-a/c cars. The battery, alternator, power steering, and starter are all on the drivers side. I have the engine and trans out of the 71 right now, and it sits noticeably higher on the drivers side.

Originally Posted by njsteve

I was thinking (always a dangerous endeavor)...it's probably all the A/C gear that causes these things to sit lower on the passenger side. You have that heavy A-6 compressor, the evaporator and fiberglass box, and all the hoses and extraneous other shrapnel that go along with the system. Not to mention the heavy radial spare tire and rim on the right side as well. All that would tend to make the car unevenly weighted to the right side.

[Scarebird]

Originally Posted by eaglesan13

What about non-a/c cars. The battery, alternator, power steering, and starter are all on the drivers side...

One thing I always thought Chevy did better, putting all that heavy stuff on the passenger side.

[njsteve]

Maybe the bodies get torque-twisted over the years? I know when I had Mopars, several of them (440 and Hemi powered Cudas and Chargers) had cracks in the rear, passenger side floor where the twist caused a split in the same place in each car.

Is your spare tire out of the trunk?

[vitamin c]

njsteve,
After recently doing the same rebuild to my 74 SD, I'm faced with the same problem of the left front being considerably higher, like 3/4 inch. After the front and rear springs were replaced I noticed the lean from behind the car and have traced it to the driver front spring. I used replacements #cs5402 from Classic and noticed right away they don't have the same tapered (flat) top coils as the originals. They look identical top to bottom, but they paint a white mark on one end and call that the "top" of the spring, and install "up". What I'm noticing is the driver spring is not sitting vertical in the frame spring pocket. The passenger side installed perfect and sits centered and vertical. Saturday I'm pulling the left front back apart to find the problem. My guess is that the sprint "top" is not siting in the correct groove in the frame. I used a bore scope to see up into the frame and see the spring doesn't look right. I'm assuming that the round replacement coils don't sit correct in the frame as original.

[njsteve]

That is one of the problems with the generic one application-fits-all springs from places like Classic Industries. While not ground to a taper, the company that built my springs bends the lowest section of the coil so that it is touching the next coil at it's tip. The top is regular coil like the original spring. This way the bottom can sit into the pocket in the lower control arm. The upper locating area in the subframe has a circular cage that the spring locates around. I don't think the upper can be out of its spot without major problems in getting the spring to fit into the area. It's kind of a go or no-go situation at the top. Yuo may have the spring siting half on that circular cage, causing the upset height.

[vitamin c]

I agree with the go, no-go installation , but something isn't right as far as I can tell. without the "flat" upper coil, its causing coil bind of sorts. I can see the spring is in its correct location, but I cant tell until I remove it to confirm. I may go through a lot of work to find there is nothing I can do, but the lean is driving me nuts

[njsteve]

Is the bottom coil end sitting in the "pocket" in the control arm? The easy way to check is to insert a drill bit into one of those two small holes. If the drill bit doesn't immediately touch the bottom coil through that hole (and instead has a 1/2" movement upward) then the coil is not in the pocket and needs to be rotated counter clockwise and reset.

[vitamin c]

yes, the bottom sits nicely in the pocket of the control arm. I cleaned and painted mine identical to yours, so no crud or rust causing an issue. The bore scope camera shows the top coil not sitting real level, but its very hard to see what the actual issue is (if there even is one). ill report back after this weekend and let you know what I found.