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My 64 LeMans has the original springs, ball joints and A arm hardware. I don't seem to have any issues currently I will most likely have this taken care of or do it myself if I can.

Any recommendations as far as manufacturers for the items I will probably need?

I am sure if I have it done at a shop it won't be cheap but I am not sure I will be able to.

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Another question, I am seeing stock height and 1-2" drop springs. I am ignorant as to the application of drop springs. Someone please enlighten me?

[JLMounce]

If you like a near stock looking stance, I would recommend a 1" drop spring front and rear. Hears why. Many of the aftermarket "stock replacement" springs have had several part numbers consolidated over the years and depending on your specific car, a stock replacement spring may not sit at stock ride height. There's a good chance it'll make the car sit a bit higher than it was designed to from the factory. Additionally, your stock springs have likely lost some rate in their nearly 60 years of service and are likely sagging a bit currently.

If you like your current stance, a 1" drop spring is going to typically keep it sitting about where it is now and also provide you the benefit of additional spring rate which is sorely needed in these cars. For a true 1" drop it's hard to go wrong with the Global West offering. If you want the car to sit just slightly lower, the SPC springs at 1.3" drop work nicely. There's a lot more choice in good quality springs at the 2" drop level. Eibach, Hotchkis, BMR, DSE etc. take you're pick, they will all serve you well, but they do of course lower the car more.

For your bushings, try to find stock replacement moog bushings. I'm not typically a huge fan of polyurethane for two reasons. They squeak and they tend to bounce the control arms around. instead of compressing and relieving like a rubber bushing, they compress and bounce back...they literally make super balls out of the stuff. They also don't provide all that much greater deflection resistance than a quality rubber bushing. If you absolutely need to have deflection resistance, you want a solid bushing in the arms.

For the ball joints, use a moog lower stock replacement joint and a Pro-FOrged .5" tall upper ball joint. These will provide good service life and the added height from the upper ball joint will give you a bit better camber curve, increasing grip in corners without sacrificing any ride quality.

There are two items in your original list that you are missing to really complete this. First is shocks. If you decide to go on an aftermarket drop spring, stock replacement shocks will not have the damping necessary to control the added spring rate. Instead opt for a set of upgraded shocks in the stock sizes. Bilstein HD or Koni Classics (Koni Red's) are my top choices in stock sizes. If they are a bit more expensive than you were planning, I've also run a Gabriel VST shock and it was pretty acceptable coupled with my Hotchkis springs.

Last item is your alignment. Don't let a tech align the car to the factory settings. Instead shoot for a modern alignment closer to these settings.

Camber: -.5*
Caster: +3*
Toe: 1/16th" in

Don't let them put a road crown alignment on it either, they should try and reach those numbers (not always possible to get +3* caster) or as close to.

As long as you are in there, now is also a good idea to rebuild the steering system with new linkages and joints and possibly have a rebuild on the steering box. Put all that together and you're going to have a nice riding and much better handling vehicle.

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Jason, thank you for that information, it gives me options I hadn't considered.

The car sits, in my opinion, nicely. I replaced the rear springs 20 years ago so it sits slightly higher in the rear.

The shocks are also 20 years old so I figured they would need replacing, although they seem to respond reasonably.

I will take all the information I can get, so thanks again.

[JLMounce]

Yeah, my recommendation would be the Global West springs in the 1" drop. This is probably going to make the car sit a bit flatter than it does now. If you know you want a bit of a rake, you can consider mixing and matching. the SPC 1.3" drop springs in the front with the Global West 1" drop springs in the rear should get you fairly close in my opinion.

There's some other cool stuff that you could do, but isn't necessary. Or you could opt for them at a later date if you wanted. Those would be changing out the bump stops in the lower control arms to a progressive rate jounce bumper. Instead of pyramid of rubber, it's a foam cone that sits in a cup. As the material is compressed in bump it adds more and more rate, slowing the compression of the system as the limit of bump travel is approached. Without providing force applied to pushing back up on the car. It's what you find in modern cars and why when they roll through a big bump, the drop and take a set instead of dropping and bouncing back up.

https://www.spcalignment.com/compone...tion&pid=95339

You can also add aftermarket front and rear sway bars. I prefer the large hollow bars from Hellwig. Good quality and they don't break the bank. There's lots of choices there however.

The sway bars would help cornering ability at the expense of near imperceptible levels of wheel rate during normal cruising. Most people won't ever feel them.