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Complete lowering instructions inside...search no more.

35K views 58 replies 18 participants last post by  avengeusa  
#1 · (Edited)
since we're having lots of members wanting to lower they're car's lately, it can also go in the genaral section or where ever you feel it should go.:thumbsup:

Heres a "copy and Paste" instructions that I had writing out for a fellow member on another forum about a year ago, and also did this same for several other members on different forum's so here you go, and I hope this will help you out, some of you with older C-4's will have to buy 1 1/2 inch wheel spacers and these instructions are for C-5 owners as well:thumbsup: ........

It's so easy to do! Infact, the hardest thing to do is to cut the rubber off the spring.. that stuff on there is tuff!!
Unbolt the outer tie rod & sway bar, on both sides, losen the spring retainers which is holding the leaf spring to the frame of the car. (blue arrow in picture below)


On either side that you what to start on first, get a block of wood ( 2 by 4 ) and a small floor jack will be fine, put the wood along with the jack under the spring closest to the a-arm, with out it being ON the a-arm it's self and slowly jack the spring up untill it's not resting on the lower a-arm ( about a 1/4 to an 1/2 inch off )

Disconect the ABS sensor thats located on the brake assembly, thats very important for you to do so!! ( if yours has one) remove the 2 bolts that are holding the shocks to the lower a-arm (they're located near the spring in the lower a-arm), unbolt the lower ball joint stud nut, you can use a two jaw puller or what I did was unscrew the nut untill it covered the end of the stud and with a hammer, tap on the top of the nut and not that hard or you'll ruin either the nut it's self or the stud or both. (try using a hard rubber mallet first)


Before doing this, find something to put under the wheel hub.. another block of wood would be fine just to stabilize it and it should come free with no problem!!
repeat this on the other side and let the presure off from the 2 by 4 and jack free and you should be able to slide the spring out from either side after you pull back at the wheel hub away little, the spring will slide out from the lower a-arm.

It will not come out all the way if the car is not jacked up high enough and it does not have to!! you just need to be able to slide the spring far enough to be able to reach the rubber mounts.



With a steak knife or I prefered a hack saw blade, saw off the rubber mounts (#1 arrows in picture's) and try not to cut into the spring it's self... take your time, don't rush!!.
Do this on both sides.


Image



(Helpfull hint: while cutting the rubber off, lift up on the side that you started cutting at, at the same time you cutting away, the reason is that if you dont do this, the rubber will grab onto the knife/sawblade and you'll make very slow progress if any at all. The first side that I did without doing this took me about an hr and a half to cut, untill I lifted the rubber up off the blade thats sliding back and forth, the other side took 10 min to complete the job, big difference.)



This will give you the drop that your, I think looking for!!!



The wheels will be, depending on what size rims you've got, if your running stock 17's will be about an 1 inch to an 1 1/4 from the fender wells, and if you want an altamite drop on your car, take out the lowering screw's (if you own a C-5) shave off those rubber bushing's that your leaf spring sit's on in the a-arm!! (#2 red arrow in left hand pic) for a maximuim drop NO!! THE TIRE'S WILL NOT RUB!!


Image




For the Rear end, take out the stock bolt's (Red arrow) and replace them with 12 inch bolts, buy some extra washers as well because you'll need them to be able to adjust the height by using them as shims.


Jack up the car, place a jack stand underneath some where stable, once the car is up in the air place your jack underneath the leaf spring with a block of wood between them (Jack and spring) to protect the spring, this will release the tention on the spring and bolt, unscrew the nut, and replace with the longer one, if you need washers on either one of the bolts the washers will go on before threading the bolt back through the the assembly, thats it plan and simple.


You will have to of course hopefully with out saying, take the wheels off to do this job, and the ride is fine, just a little more stiff, and I do mean a little.
A wheel alignment will have to be done but you dont have to go right away but evntualy it willhave to be done.
I hope this helps out all whos been wanting to lower they're car's .


Aloha
Image
 
#6 ·
The part were it says that your suppose to unbolt the outer tie rod & sway bar, on both sides. Like there will it be hard to put back the tie rod and sway bar back on. And the part also were is says to loosen the spring retainers. Do I remove or just untighten it? This is the most confussing part "unbolt the lower ball joint stud nut, you can use a two jaw puller or what I did was unscrew the nut untill it covered the end of the stud and with a hammer, tap on the top of the nut and not that hard or you'll ruin either the nut it's self or the stud or both. (try using a hard rubber mallet first)".
 
#7 ·
Anytime you are removing suspension pieces that are together in that fashion it is best to use a fork to remove them. You can rent one from your local parts store. Loosen the nut on the part Be it the tie rod or ball joint but don't remove it. Use the fork to seperate the connection then you can remove the nut and take it apart. Putting the tie rods together is reverse of removal
just with out the fork.
 
#12 ·
88corvette said:
so are you saying that I can cut the pad off all the way and there will not need to be any left? and this will be ok? also on the rear, the less you tighten it the lower it will be? in other words the further down the bolt the nut is the lower it will be?
as far as the back bolt question, yes I am saying this but only backing it down to a curtain point, not untill theres no more threads at the other end of the bolt, but suggestion would be to replce the stock nut with a lock nut, that would be much safer, as far as the front lowering qustion, yes, cut the pads totaly off.

My car's been this way now for over 3 years, and still have not a sinlge or close to any type of problem that has come up becuase of me doing so, your car is though not mine so use your judgement on what you do to your car, I like to go with the extreme while you might not want to go as extreme as I, it's all up to you, that being said, I really dont think you will have any problems with your car if you decide to go as low with your set up as I have with mine. :thumbsup: you will need to get a wheel alinement if you go as extreme as I have though, they'll have no problems getting the alignment back into specs and it willn ot be that far off to begin with when they do put it back just to let you know. :thumbsup:
 
#13 ·
Primal Instinct said:
as far as the back bolt question, yes I am saying this but only backing it down to a curtain point, not untill theres no more threads at the other end of the bolt, but suggestion would be to replce the stock nut with a lock nut, that would be much safer, as far as the front lowering qustion, yes, cut the pads totaly off.

My car's been this way now for over 3 years, and still have not a sinlge or close to any type of problem that has come up becuase of me doing so, your car is though not mine so use your judgement on what you do to your car, I like to go with the extreme while you might not want to go as extreme as I, it's all up to you, that being said, I really dont think you will have any problems with your car if you decide to go as low with your set up as I have with mine. :thumbsup: you will need to get a wheel alinement if you go as extreme as I have though, they'll have no problems getting the alignment back into specs and it willn ot be that far off to begin with when they do put it back just to let you know. :thumbsup:
thanks very much. I just wasn't sure. I want it slammed so im going to the extreme also :cool:
 
#17 · (Edited)
This should be sticky'd!!!!

top! This should be sticky'd!!!!

i just got a front kit off ebay for 20$ that was originally from mid america. says it can lower 1 - 1 1/4" came w/ 2 triangular style blocks no more than 1/2" tall.
 
#20 ·
glasrtlr said:
so do u cut the inner top rubber blocks off and glue the plastic wedges in their place ? or do u trim some rubber off the bottom of the end pads.
just lookin to lower the cg a little, not make it undriveable on highway
Yes, you cut the inner rubber pieces off then glue on the smaller wegdes, since you dont want to go very low, those wegdes you have there will do just that, not go very low, it might drop u only about an inch to an inch 1/2 at the most.
 
#22 ·
glasrtlr said:
thnx a whole bunch. us with simple minds need simple answers. def gonna do this now that "work-on-it season" (winter) is here. sorry that u guys on the island have to drive urs year round.
haa haa haa ha, damn it, you guys get to have "Work on it seasons"?!? why can't we have such things here, that means we never will have time to work on our cars unless we create the down time for our selves. :laughing:


Glad I we could help, post up pics once your pau (done) lowering it, and welcome to the family of lowerd machines.
 
#23 ·
I've been thinking about lowering my 84 when I get my ZR1 rims, but have always been afraid of all the work involved. I read the steps and it sounds pretty easy, but I have a couple questions.
1. How long does the whole process actually take.
2. Are there any complementary mods to do while I'm at it, like poly bushings or anything?
3. Will I need any specialized tools?

I will be purchasing a lowering kit from Eckler or Mid America to do it. Thanks!
 
#24 ·
muddpile said:
I've been thinking about lowering my 84 when I get my ZR1 rims, but have always been afraid of all the work involved. I read the steps and it sounds pretty easy, but I have a couple questions.
1. How long does the whole process actually take.
2. Are there any complementary mods to do while I'm at it, like poly bushings or anything?
3. Will I need any specialized tools?

I will be purchasing a lowering kit from Eckler or Mid America to do it. Thanks!
1. it depends really, for instance it took us nearly 3 hours to do one side because of us having a hrad time cutting that rubber bushing (helpful hint writen down so you wont have to go through the same prob we went through)

the other side took us only 1/2 hour tops! cuase we knew what to do for this side to avoid the probs we had on the first side, now we're talking about fron loweringok, the back is a wiz! I'd say about 1/2 combined to do both sides.

2. Well the bushings and stuff would be your call, you can replace the bushings that are related to what your doing or just go and replace all up front since your practicly there already, it depends on you I guess.


3. no specialized tools needed, might want to get a ball joint puller or a arm puller what ever you call it if your affrid to hammer on the a arm's some (with a hard rubber mallet like in the instructions)


hope this info helps.
 
#25 ·
1. it depends really, for instance it took us nearly 3 hours to do one side because of us having a hrad time cutting that rubber bushing (helpful hint writen down so you wont have to go through the same prob we went through)
what's the helpfull hint? ;-)
 
#26 ·
Primal Instinct said:
1. it depends really, for instance it took us nearly 3 hours to do one side because of us having a hrad time cutting that rubber bushing (helpful hint writen down so you wont have to go through the same prob we went through)

the other side took us only 1/2 hour tops! cuase we knew what to do for this side to avoid the probs we had on the first side, now we're talking about fron loweringok, the back is a wiz! I'd say about 1/2 combined to do both sides.

2. Well the bushings and stuff would be your call, you can replace the bushings that are related to what your doing or just go and replace all up front since your practicly there already, it depends on you I guess.


3. no specialized tools needed, might want to get a ball joint puller or a arm puller what ever you call it if your affrid to hammer on the a arm's some (with a hard rubber mallet like in the instructions)


hope this info helps.
(Helpfull hint: while cutting the rubber off, lift up on the side that you started cutting at, at the same time you cutting away, the reason is that if you dont do this, the rubber will grab onto the knife/sawblade and you'll make very slow progress if any at all. The first side that I did without doing this took me about an hr and a half to cut, untill I lifted the rubber up off the blade thats sliding back and forth, the other side took 10 min to complete the job, big difference.)