need to raise the ride height...

[galaxie50059]

Hi Gang,

I need to raise the ride height on my 59 Ford Custom for about a day or so. I just got done with a major front end overhaul and took it in for an alignment. The shop cannot do it because the car sits too low(is that possible?) in the rear for their equipment to attach to the wheels. Two other shops in the area had the same issue with it. The first shop thought I had lowering blocks in it and they were simply going to remove them for the duration of the alignment and reinstall them when the job was done. It doesnt have blocks and all the leaf springs are intact. The car is sitting level too. The car currently has 14 inchers on it now that are just under 23 inches tall. I have a set of 15 inchers that are 25.5 inches tall. I need to gain about 1 inch of ride height from the center of the hub on the rear wheel upwards to the edge of the fender, basically the top edge of the rim needs to be exposed from under the fender for this to work. Will swapping out the wheels work for this or am I stuck with a close enough front end job? Thanks guys for any and all help on this one.

 

[FlatBroke]

50059,
If there is any way possible, see if you can take it to a shop that still uses a "Toe Bar" and a magnetic bubble guage to Align the frontend. Some people will argue, "That method is not as good as a Hunter alignment system", my reply to that is "HORSE HOCKEY". Some shops that still know how to do the "Toe bar" method are generaly going to be a place that works on big trucks...
Hope that helps...

 

[galaxie50059]

There is a place about an hour from here that services heavy duty and over the road trucks. I will give them a shout and see what they can do for it. The other option available to me is to run it and check tire wear and adjust accordingly, I would rather not do that if at all possible. The reason I would hate to do that is that the car has all new rubber on it all the way around. I am not worried about the rear end anyways as the car has always tracked straight and doesnt dog leg(drove it through some light snow to verify that), so just getting the front right will be fine with me. Thanks Flat for the suggestion.

 

[Tripper]

Mags!

The other option available to me is to run it and check tire wear and adjust accordingly, I would rather not do that if at all possible.

Galaxie,
Several of the big magazines have had articles recently about doing your own alignment. Try lookin' @ their websites & searchin' for alignment.

BoB

 

[motomech]

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/horse_hockey

i thought u just made that up!

 

[Gastrick]

galaxie, changing the wheels won't give you the desired indcreased dimension that you seek. That measurement would remain the same. Your car would just be higher off of the ground. If you have and old pair of air shocks laying around, you could install them in the car on a temporary basis until after the alignment. Another option would be to add another leaf to your spring packs, but that's sort of a hassle just to get your car aligned. Or you could make some spring shackles out of some thick flat bar to lift it a bit until after the alignment.

 

[motomech]

cant they just use a couple of bottle jacks under the car while its on the lift
like between the axle and the frame or from the car lift to the frame just high enuf to untuck your wheels from the rear fenders

the hunter machine i used to operate ...the alignment heads could be mounted on the wheels top to bottom or from front to back

 

[motomech]

find somebody with a "john bean" alignment rack....the alignment heads mount different

 

[galaxie50059]

I have been driving the car for the last couple of days and I have to say it handles great. It pulls a little bit to one side(have been adjusting the tie rod end to counter this and its getting better). Its only been two days so I havent noted any tire wear yet.

There is a shop near here(about an hour one way), that does have an older machine, but they dont use it due to the complexity of the cars today. Thats what I was told anyways. I personally think its because no one there knows how to use it.

Gastrick, I kind of figured that changing wheels wont help the ride height issue after talking it over with a few other folks. I dont have any air shocks laying around. I do have a set of aftermarket add on coil over springs that go over top the shocks. If I clamped those onto the shock with the suspension raised that would essentially do the same thing as adding air shocks, correct? I dont want to add a leaf spring to this car as it is a daily driver and needs to be comfy for the lady passenger/occasional driver. I added a spring to my 59 fairlane and lets just say my 73 F350 4x4 highboy rides nicer than that car does. The spring shackle thing wont work due to the design of the spring mounts and the shackles themselves. The car runs a reverse arch leaf spring under the axle set up with torsion springs in each shackle(this comes from a ford shop manual for the car, not from me). It is confusing I admit, but once it is seen it makes sense.

Motomech, jacks were discussed, but because of the way the axle sits, the shock placement and the gas tank, the shop owner would not hear of it for liability reasons. We even tried to mount the heads front to back versus up and down, the machine didnt like that for whatever reason.