BUILD THREAD my 1980 Grand Prix w/BBC 454 build thread
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Last night, a co-worker and I dug into my front suspension to install my new Moog 5610 springs and shocks. He had recently done a spring swap on his '84 Camaro, so we both figured the process would be the same. It was similar, but we did need to adopt a couple different procedures to make it work.
We put the car on a lift, disconnected the sway bar, and unbolted the bottom of both shocks. We placed a transmission jack under each inner ends of the driver side lower control arm, then removed those two bolts. Now we slowly lifted the entire car, allowing the control arm to slowly drop down from the inside until the spring was loose. The new spring was put into position, then we gently lowered the car and fiddled with the jacks until the arm ends went back into place. We reinserted both bolts and got the nuts started. Not bad, we both thought.
I paused to take a photo of one old spring next to one new one. I expected the new ones to be shorter (unloaded) than the old ones, so I was quite surprised to see them side-by-side. My old ones appear to spec out like 5598s, the shortest of the soft springs. No wonder the nose sagged so much under the weight of the big block.
The passenger side would not be so easy. The biggest problem was that one header tube runs right below the arm mounts, ie directly in the path we wanted the control arm's rear end to take. Instead of just letting the arm ends drop straight down, this time we'd have to get them to move outward at the same time... and, if we were lucky, the spring wouldn't fly out and kill us in the process.
We got the old spring out, put the new one in place, and started to move the arm ends back into place. This is where things got difficult, as this arm fought us every inch of the way. We would stop, analyze the situation, lower it back down, adjust the jacks, and try again. We must have done this six or eight times, always with it stubbornly refusing to go where we wanted. Dallin came up with an idea of just trying to get the front arm partially into position--just enough to get its bolt through the forward-most hole. We managed to pull that off, which at least made us feel less unsafe since there was now another anchor point holding the compressed spring in place. Now we could focus on just getting the rear arm mount high enough to be in the correct plane, though it was way too far outside its frame mount. That's when my co-worker Dave passed through to see what we we up to. "If you guys had a ratchet strap, you could pull that outer arm end rearward and it would go right into place." I went rummaging through the shop, found a ratchet strap, and followed his suggestion. Like magic, it went perfectly into place. Wow! At last, we were able to properly insert both bolts on this side.
By now it was past the time when Dallin had promised his wife he would be home. Oops. We quickly reattached the sway bar and torqued all the control arm nuts. He thought we could quickly swap the shocks and be done with the entire operation, but of course the 37-year-old upper nuts were pretty much rusted in place and didn't want to budge. Dave came back out and suggested we grind off the top. We started to do that on the driver side... it was taking forever... and we ultimately had to break it off after the grinder had cut it halfway through. I told Dallin not to worry about it any more tonight; I would just park the car outside and have Dave take me home. So that was it.
This morning, I was able to get a photo in the light:
I only moved the car about 100 feet, so I'm sure the springs will settle a little. Even still, I am thrilled to have the nose up at stock height. There is still a slight bit of rake, which is also fine by me. This turned out about as good as I could have hoped.
Now, to get the shocks installed....
We put the car on a lift, disconnected the sway bar, and unbolted the bottom of both shocks. We placed a transmission jack under each inner ends of the driver side lower control arm, then removed those two bolts. Now we slowly lifted the entire car, allowing the control arm to slowly drop down from the inside until the spring was loose. The new spring was put into position, then we gently lowered the car and fiddled with the jacks until the arm ends went back into place. We reinserted both bolts and got the nuts started. Not bad, we both thought.
I paused to take a photo of one old spring next to one new one. I expected the new ones to be shorter (unloaded) than the old ones, so I was quite surprised to see them side-by-side. My old ones appear to spec out like 5598s, the shortest of the soft springs. No wonder the nose sagged so much under the weight of the big block.
The passenger side would not be so easy. The biggest problem was that one header tube runs right below the arm mounts, ie directly in the path we wanted the control arm's rear end to take. Instead of just letting the arm ends drop straight down, this time we'd have to get them to move outward at the same time... and, if we were lucky, the spring wouldn't fly out and kill us in the process.
We got the old spring out, put the new one in place, and started to move the arm ends back into place. This is where things got difficult, as this arm fought us every inch of the way. We would stop, analyze the situation, lower it back down, adjust the jacks, and try again. We must have done this six or eight times, always with it stubbornly refusing to go where we wanted. Dallin came up with an idea of just trying to get the front arm partially into position--just enough to get its bolt through the forward-most hole. We managed to pull that off, which at least made us feel less unsafe since there was now another anchor point holding the compressed spring in place. Now we could focus on just getting the rear arm mount high enough to be in the correct plane, though it was way too far outside its frame mount. That's when my co-worker Dave passed through to see what we we up to. "If you guys had a ratchet strap, you could pull that outer arm end rearward and it would go right into place." I went rummaging through the shop, found a ratchet strap, and followed his suggestion. Like magic, it went perfectly into place. Wow! At last, we were able to properly insert both bolts on this side.
By now it was past the time when Dallin had promised his wife he would be home. Oops. We quickly reattached the sway bar and torqued all the control arm nuts. He thought we could quickly swap the shocks and be done with the entire operation, but of course the 37-year-old upper nuts were pretty much rusted in place and didn't want to budge. Dave came back out and suggested we grind off the top. We started to do that on the driver side... it was taking forever... and we ultimately had to break it off after the grinder had cut it halfway through. I told Dallin not to worry about it any more tonight; I would just park the car outside and have Dave take me home. So that was it.
This morning, I was able to get a photo in the light:
I only moved the car about 100 feet, so I'm sure the springs will settle a little. Even still, I am thrilled to have the nose up at stock height. There is still a slight bit of rake, which is also fine by me. This turned out about as good as I could have hoped.
Now, to get the shocks installed....
The car currently wears 235/60-15s all around. The little bit of rake should make it easier to fit wider tires in the rear once I burn two of these ones off (which shouldn't take long).
Hot damn man! That's exactly how I want my Regal to sit (once I fix my engine being broken), but I imagine I'll have to get slightly softer springs, or at least shorter, because my motor certainly weighs at least 250lbs less than that BBC.
Well, just study that infamous Moog spring chart carefully. The 5608s are 1/4" shorter than what I installed, and the 5606s are another 1/4" shorter than that. Since they are all the same rate, each one in turn will support a bit less weight at the same ride height. (Did that make sense?)
I drove the Grand Prix to work today. On my way home, I was on a three-lane concrete road that crosses over some railroad tracks. I was in the center lane, doing between 40-45 MPH as I approached the overpass. As I began climbing the hill, the car in front of me began to slow because the car in front of him was doing the same... even though nobody was in front of him and the stop light on top of the hill was green. I could see our light was going to change soon, and if the first bozo kept slowing down we'd all have to stop. The right lane was empty and nobody was coming up from behind, so I hit my signal and started to change lanes. Just as I crossed into the right lane, I gave the throttle a light prod--at least I thought it was light--in order to coax the TCU to drop down out of fourth gear and into third. The computer was perhaps a bit too eager, because it went right past third and instead dropped me into second gear. By now I was steering a bit to the left so as to follow the curve of the road, and the sudden onset of torque caused the tires to break loose and the tail end began sliding out to the right. It completely surprised me, but I quickly lifted off the throttle to kill the wheelspin, then got back on it much more gently in order to remain in my lane and safely crest the hill.
I'm realizing this car commands complete respect from its driver.
Man! Glad to hear it didn't get away from you. As you started telling the story I started getting a bad feeling. I thought your story was going to have a bad ending.
I agree I thought there was going to be some bad news!! Glad it wasn't!
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