Hi i cut my spring rubbers off before the lowering wedges came, when I got wedges it said to measure rubber before and after to know how much to shorten alum. spring retainers. I guessed but ended up to short and one broke setting the car on ground. First does anyone know part no. for the alum spring retainer? second any of you who have dropped their car with the wedges. What length did you end up on the retainer. Did it look like it was even with top of wedge or slightly less to kind of preload the spring in a little [Say 1/8"]? Part of the problem is car is an inch different in height side to side[ground to fender lip]. The front spring looks not centered.It's like 1/4" to 3/8" pushed to the drivers side. If I die grinded the spring retainer bolt holes more to pass side, do you think this would center spring and possibly drop drivers side height? Thanks Tim

Try flipping the spring the other way to see if it affects the ride height. Also the wedges can slide out of place if isn't set or isn't strong enough, this will screw up ride height.

I only cut about 1/4" off the retainers. I think I got them from mid america. If you cut them too short, they are stressed and can snap when tightening. They don't need to compress the wedges. You should have some aluminum shims that were above the orignal spring. I used these to determine if the retainer height was ok before installing.

Although my spring is an 85, so it might be different than yours. Mine came with steel retainers originally.



The rest of the info on lowering is in the Tech Library, Chassis section.

Mine didn't have any shims above the spring. it did have a thin sheet metal with square pocket that the old rubber sat in [kind of glued in]. Since the new wedge wasn't square like the old rubber, I didn't see any way to reuse it. My notes say before I started the pass. side was high so it's possible I flipped the spring on putting it in. I really don't see that much wrong that could be making one side way high. I adjusted rear height,adjusted tire pressures,took front shocks out,bounced front end,drove it etc. I'm wondering if just because the retainer is cracked could make that side higher? It all looks tight though and held where it should. Thanks Tim

I don't see the retainer effecting ride height unless the spring is offcenter and the retainer is forcing the spring to flatten out when it's tightened.

If the spring is centered and has weight on it, you could unbolt the retainers from the car and it wouldn't do anything.

In fact, I'd even set the front tires down on ramps or blocks before tightening the retainers. They should bottom out against the chassis, not the spring pivot.

Hi What I did was put car jacks under tires so some of the the car weight was on the tires before tightening retainer bolts as manual said car had to be on ground when doing that.I was wondering if I had too much pressure on tires when I tightened retainers as the one retainer snapped when I let pressure off that tire. I knew that the retainers were short so I sliped two 1/16" body shims under each side of the retainers to make up for being too short. It worked on the pass side but not the drivers side the side that's high,Probley why it broke. What do you think about slotting the retainer mount holes so I can center the spring?I don't know if centering spring will drop it but I could switch ends on spring first to see if that switches high side.Not really sure what you mean by bottoming out the spring against the chassis. I think it is.I belieive it's hitting the top of spring tunnel.one thing I tried to do was slip a peice of paper and also a hacksaw blade in to see when wedges hit chassis compared to how close and when retainer was to being bottomed out. it's too far out of wack I might have to do something drastic like take the drivers side wedge out completely[3/8" drop maybe] or sand it down[that will give maybe 1/4" drop] or maybe hammer up the spring tunnel above drivers side of spring. The pass side looks perfect right where I want it[26 1/4'] and rear is about an 1" higher for a rake effect.Sorry this got so long but If I can't get drivers side down lowering front was not worth it. Thanks Tim