Thread: Bucket Springs and Shocks

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I'm still in the process of putting my T-Bucket together and one area (among many) that confuses a novice like me is the suspension.

The rides I've seen all seem to be 'over shocked'. Talking to a suspension expert, he agress - typically they are set-up wrong and don't need the level of suspension they have. Buckets are light cars and yet have shocks designed for vehicles 3-4 times their weight.

Anyway here's my scenario; I want to use a 3 leaf rear spring and coil over rear shocks. I fully admit the coil overs are for looks only and I think the spring alone will do the job.

So are there any coil overs that are soft enough to be used in conjunction with a transverse rear spring?

I've been at Total Performance and elsewhere and they do have shocks but no coil overs to be used with rear springs.

Max Christoffersen

On one of my earlier projects back in the sixties I built a glass 27 "T" pickup. I used a Transverse rear spring with just the main leaf and I think the next one or the third one above it. I then mounted coil overs and used Overload type springs on the coilovers. These were the kind all the old time auto supplys sold that clamped over the stock shock. I think you still can get them, try JC Whitney. They were available in three different spring rates, I used the middle rate and the car rode very good, not so bouncy and skiddish as a lot of other buckets. (nobody ever guessed they weren't originally coil over springs).

Thanks Bob - I'll check this out.

I love the combination of both, but I don't want to fall into the trap of over springing my ride for the cosmetics.

Max Christoffersen