Thread: And more questions: Front suspension & clearance

Tweet

After careful consideration, brain storming with you guys and 2 hot rod shops, I think I will go about my suspension the following way. if anyone see some flaws in my reasoning, please let me know before I get knee deep in thick doodoo

1- My front leaf spring are tired and flat. I believe they may be original 32s. they are riding metal to metal. Lots of noise and stiffness. I will replace them with P&J multi leaf with rubbers to improve both: 1- arch (hence gain a little height that way), 2- comfort 3- SILENCE I will save the old leaf spring, just in case I regret their departure.

2- While changing the front leaf I will move the shims to the top, thereby gaining a bit more height still.

3- I will see how all this adds up and how the roadster now rides. I will repaint my tie rod so I can see new scrapping marks, if any appear (aka: new incidents of pulley scrapping on the tie rod).

4- Assuming I don't, I will then look at my current front shock angle, amount of travel and performance. if either of these 3 are still not right, then:

5- I will get shorter lower shock mounts and if needed the 7 1/4 inch long P&J front shocks

Then I will test drive for a while to see how these changes are working out for me. If I still have scrapping problem, I might consider the bent tie rod first, before resorting to a "raising of the engine" and the domino effect of possible problems that might result from it.

6- I will then check my front stance and assess how high my Hiboy's butt needs to now go to attain proper "IN YOUR FACE, GET OUT OF MY FREAKING WAY" stance that I love oh sooo much .

7- I will then have to figure out rear tire size (I do want to go one size higher in the back) and new rear shocks (mine are leaking and also dead) and possibly new shock mounts that owuld offer more than one position to further play with height.

I think I have it in the proper order right? take care of the front first and then figure out where the rear should sit?

PS: I do want to go one size tire bigger in the rear, but not wider, I don't care for real wide tires on roadsters. At that point I'll have to make decision on which tires to run... ols school White walls? radials? radial with white walls?? But that's another story for another post later down the road...