Re: '56 Suspension

Posted by BH On 2010/6/8 9:30:32

Mitch -

Thanks for taking time to uncover your project and provide us with some better views. (BTW, if the car was in a sorry state when you got it, it looks like you've done a magnificent job in restoring it.)

Clearly, the rear is sitting too high, but not so high that any damage was done. I've seen much worse. However, while I've seen more than one of these cars sitting just as high in the rear, I've never seen any of those cars sitting so low in front. There may be more than one problem at the root of this whole situation.

If the fasteners for the inner control arm bushing had been tightened with no load on the front wheels, I would expect the front end to be sitting high, which it is not. Still, you might want to review Step 2 in STB 55T-1 about friction in the front-end.

Also, have you given ALL of the grease fittings on the suspension (and believe em, there are plenty of 'em) a good shot of chassis lube, including load arm pivots? I've seen more than one car where some of those fittings were hidden - buried under a lot of crud that built up over years of sloppy lube service. Failure of the bearings in the front load arm pivots is not common.

After checking that, I would proceed with Randy Berger's advice on electrical troubleshooting. A battery cut-off switch might prove helpful, as well, while you attempt to manually jumper the solenoids.

Once you have the car reasonably level, you can then begin to explore some other possible sources of the problem.

Since it appears the compensator (short) bars have been removed and re-installed under a previous owner, one has to wonder if anything else might have been removed, but perhaps re-installed incorrectly. It could be that the compensator control link is mis-indexed the left main bar. A pair of crossed wires could cause problems, too. It will require a thorough review of the factory service manual and inspection of the car.

Independent of that, there could simply be a malfunction inside the compensator control box.

Keep us posted on your progress.