Pontiac Owners Club UK

On the to do list this winter coming

new rear leaf springs
new shocks all round
body bushings

new front screen and rear screen.

Gonna be a fun winter. either that or an expensive one!

do you think the rear springs can be done diy on the driveway?

yes, just support the body on stands/blocks and take weight of axle, and undo front and back spring mounts/shackles, then undo u bolts and clamp bolts that clamp spring to axle

ok sounds fairly straight forward!

I presume that unlike coil springs there will be no real tension on them and they will literally "fall" out once the shackles and u bolts are off?

yes, heavy so don't lay under them. but no tension
best to get new u bolts and pads if you can, and new shackles and bushes

Although i have a sort of garage i do most of my work on the car with it on the front part of my drive.I did my rear leafs that way,bought mine from W.A.S.P as they were cheapest at time and wanted a 4 leaf set like what the car came with,everyone else only had 5 leafs.I found the hardest part was undoing all the rusty bolts.I fitted all new bolts and shackles.
Body bushings are easy as long as bolts come out ok.

Are 5 leaves firmer than 4?

Potentially lucky for me, Robin had the springs off 5 years ago to do some work so the bolts may be easier to remove than 30+ years of rusty bolts

bhm1712 wrote:Are 5 leaves firmer than 4?

Not sure,but the ride is pretty harsh,might be partly down to the Eibach front lowering springs though.Also they made rear pretty high,had to fit 2" lowering blocks and then had to cut some metal off the edge of the spring perches,copied that bit off Tim Marotto as he used lowering blocks on his car too.
The ride is pretty awful on my car,out of around 13 Firebirds i have owned this one is the worst to drive,wasn't like that when i got it.Just don't know if it's the springs or the solid body mounts and poly bushes or maybe all that combined.

I would have thought solid body mounts make the ride as hard as can be as there is no dampening between the subframe / chassis rails and body.

bhm1712 wrote:I would have thought solid body mounts make the ride as hard as can be as there is no dampening between the subframe / chassis rails and body.

I wondered about that as some people say don't use them on the rad support,but the rad has rubber bumper things to help cushion it a bit and also cars that have a full welded on chassis only have a rubber or similar to support the rad.Same when it comes to ride quality,unless it's just because each style is designed that way so each type works better the way it was designed??

I was chatting with a guy at Tatton show who had gone there in his Shelby Mustang,he has two 2nd gens and he was saying one of them has a really harsh rides,he didn't say if it had any suspension mods already though.He said he was going to use it for Tatton but his wife won't go in it as the ride is so harsh.

You won't notice much difference between the different body mounts tbh. One of the mags did a write up on it a while back. If your fitting Sfcs,s you need solid mounts anyway.

I'm not planning on fitting subframe connectors. My car for me personally, handles good enough for the type of driving I do in it.

Richard welded SFC on my black 78 with solid mounts. The difference was incredible. I would highly recommend it.
Rocky is your man

webbel wrote:Richard welded SFC on my black 78 with solid mounts. The difference was incredible. I would highly recommend it.
Rocky is your man

if money was no object.....


got too much to do to keep her on the road nevermind dreaming of mods.

one day........

got to have a new front screen, new rear screen and welding repairs to rear window frame, got to have the rear passenger side quarter panel repaired where there is a rust bubble coming, got to have the heater box out for flap repair and adjustment, got to have new rear springs and bushings, new rear brake cylinders and drums and finally the body connectors. theres a couple of grand right there as it is.

and as a bonus if i have any spare cash im having the heads off for refurb