Cutting coils lowering ride height

bah im sorry guys 

You cannot cut ther front springs.  They will sit cockeyed and bow out.  The springs were treated after forming so you cannot re-form the ends.  I also want to know where you get your hacksaw blades.  You can just get some correct springs made.  That should cost about $150.00 per set.  Or you could go the way I did and go coil over suspencion.  I can put it in the weeds now if I like and none of that annoying seasick grampa car float that airbags give a car.  Also, if you go air bags on the cheap as suggested, don't connect the two hoses for a pair together at one valve.  On corners the air will transfer from the outside to the inside and greatly increas body roll and handeling problems.  Always seperate the four corners.  Thats why the factory did it on bag equiped cars.  The trunnion style suspension is very easy to bag because of the mounting style.  You should be able to find usable bags at the local truck stop.  Just drill the appropriate holes in the spring tower and you don't even need hoses.  Just put the valve right at the bag.  You'll have to open the hood for filling.  Also, no air tank needed.  Just get a nice air pump from the bike shop.  The kind that you put your feet on and lift and push the handle.  If you are going to run the car in the weeds, don't forget to reinforce the lower control arms and suspension stop areas by boxing the ends all the way around or you'll pop out the lower bushing from the stress.  It's just sheet metal at the arm ends.  Hope this helps.  By the way, there's a guy in Australia that did this exact same thing.  That post os a couple of years old and I beleive it was a Rebel.  You would have to search the Australia section for the pics.

what everyone else says -- plus changing ride height via spring cut or replacement, more than a small amount, affects bump steer, alignment, shock travel (they'll bottom sooner, breaking things) and all sorts of stuff. Bad idea.

Get or make lowering plates is a better idea. Safer, more reliable, straightforward.

NEGATIVE on the spring compressor. Look under a front fender. See those "ear" looking things with holes on opposite sides of the spring? There is a matching set just above the lower set. The tool we're talking about hooks in those holes and holds the spring compressed. Once hooked you just take the tire off, disconnect the shock, and push the lower arm down as far as it will go. Then the spring simply lifts out. Be careful with it! There's no way to get an internal compressor in the spring. I should add that the engine and trans must be in the car for the hooks to work. The factory hooks required the spring to be compressed a lot more -- you jacked the opposite rear corner up to transfer weight to the side you wanted to remove. I discussed this with Garry when he designed his tool, and he made it so that you don't usually have to do that. Might have to reach up and pull down on the fender a bit, but that's all. The downside is the shock has to be disconnected, but that's not much of an inconvenience when the more you compress the spring the more dangerous it is to handle.

If you send the coils out to a shop that can cut and heat treat the springs properly you should be fine. Just make sure it's a coil spring specialty shop, not just someone who's "done it all the time" or whatever. Heat treating spring steel is a bit of a science, though once the technique is practiced and you have the right equipment and chemicals it's not extremely difficult. It's like anything else, if you know how and have the stuff to work with, it gets easy... eventually.

There are coil-over kits that replace the spring entirely with a nice expensive coil over shock, but only for 1970+. Here's one: http://www.wscmotorsports.com/catalog/amc/amc_per1.htm.
It wouldn't be difficult to make a bracket that simply sits in the existing upper spring seat (drill and bolt thought top of spring tower) and sits on the existing upper trunnion spring seat (or make a new bracket -- the seat is threaded and screws on the trunnion on the big cars).  That might be something you'd want to do, wouldn't be hard to find a coil over shock the right length. They are on the high side though, $250 or so each with springs, plus the cost of making the brackets. On the bright side, once you make the brackets they will work for any 63-69 big car, and with a different lower bracket and probably different length shock, even the 64-69 American/Javelin/AMX. Don't know if there's much market for it, but I'm sure you could sell a few.

The only other alternative is a Control Freaks front suspension setup, which eliminates the trunnions. It's a complete crossmember with all new suspension and rack and pinion steering for the small cars and most big cars now (call if you have something other than the advertised 67-69 Rebel, they have them for a couple others now, 67-up anyway). It's accordingly a bit on the expensive side at around $3700 though. http://www.freakride.com/2011_amc_suspension.pdf

I installed some spring clamps on the right front spring on my 63 Classic and the front did not drop at all. I clamped the two middle coils, then tried the two bottom coils and I compressed them right together, nothing. Any ideas why there was no drop ?