[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.

[njsteve]

I brought the car in for an alignment today and was pleasantly surprised. As assembled, the caster and camber were perfectly in spec and only the toe was out of spec. It was toed in, probably due to the wacky driver's side lower ball joint/spindle wallowing situation. I brought my bag-O-shims with me but the car didn't need a single shim, whatsoever.

She tracks straight and true and the steering wheel is straight. YAY!

Now, on to the rear suspension. The front end is completely silent. But I can hear squeeks from the worn front leaf spring bushings and the squishy Midas shock absorbers and worn sway bar bushings. I had already replaced the rear shackle bushings last year when I replaced the gas tank. The new KYG as shocks arrived yesterday and now I am waiting for the new sway bar bushings that Summit is drop shipping from Prothane. This car has the small 9/16" sway bar which was a little tricky to find bushings for.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/PTP-7-1116-BL

[vitamin c]

Pulled the driver front spring again, didn't see any problems during disassembly. I decided to grind the ends of the top and bottom coils to stop any contact of the coil ends. after reassembly its better, but still has a lean. I'm going to run it and see if it settles, I'm not pulling it out again. Those coil springs are like a hand grenade!

LF=29 7/8 RF=29 1/8
LR=30 1/4 RR=29 3/4

[njsteve]

I went and did the drill bit in the two inspection holes in the lower control arm. My springs are both located in the correct pocket where the spring end is supposed to sit.

Maybe when I refurbish the rear springs i will swap them side to side to see if it offsets back to normal. It could be that 80,000 miles and 42 years of torque tended to wear a bit more on the passenger side leaf spring. Anyone who has ever seen a pickup truck with right side of the bed noticeable lower than the left, knows what I mean.

[njsteve]

We took Gramma's car out today. It was around 20 degrees and sunny out. The boy needed some driving time for his learners permit so we drove the car around the neighborhood roads. He was plodding along at around 20 mph and eventually felt confortable enough to hit a rollicking 30 mph by the end of the half hour of driving. It was a most entertaining time. His sister's first driving time was in this car, too. Nothing like creating new automotive memories in his Great Grandmother's ancient chariot that was built a quarter century before he was born.

When we got home I decided to swap out the too hot of a heat range plugs for a set of ACDelco R44TSX's. I had NGK UR45s in there but the flame pattern seems a bit close to the base ring.