suspension mods and wheel fitment on a wagon

304-dude wrote: I do believe the late uncleJohn, cut his coils too much and got a 5 inch drop. Which was not good for driving. You could do a spindle drop up to 2.5" I think. You may cut a coil to bring it close to 4" drop at the front. A fat man or CF front suspension would come down to 3" drop with 2" dropped spindles. You will be adding a rack to make the cost more expensive. Any lowering will effect geometry. All AMC cars from 67 on up use 4.5" on 5 lug patern.

72ambassador wrote: 304-dude wrote: I do believe the late uncleJohn, cut his coils too much and got a 5 inch drop. Which was not good for driving. You could do a spindle drop up to 2.5" I think. You may cut a coil to bring it close to 4" drop at the front. A fat man or CF front suspension would come down to 3" drop with 2" dropped spindles. You will be adding a rack to make the cost more expensive. Any lowering will effect geometry. All AMC cars from 67 on up use 4.5" on 5 lug patern. this is great information. everything on here is super useful and i really appreciate the stuff! you know what the widest tire i can go is? would like to go a 10 wide but i think a 9 wide would do, just like the look of 10. thanks a ton!

To put anything beyond 9" you wold need to roll flair out the wheel openings.

Note the drop plates will push the offset out, by the thickness of the plate. Usually 1/2", which also effects KPI. Fortunately it's not a big deal considering, some other makes are limited even more so with wider wheels.

To get some room, you can use a custom coil over setup, which can be adjusted on height, without cutting a coil.

Since you prefer not to cut springs, and want 10" rims. It's more costly, but it brings more options on the table for getting the looks you want

If one has a pre 70, our member 343sharpstick has a kit to convert trunion to coil over. It's under Dairy Land Fabrications.

It will allow dropping as well. But to get down to 4" will require some extra work with upper arm lengthening to keep the geometry proper.

I did a wee touching of lengthening by cheating spring saddle placement on the upper arm. You can get about 1/2" more length by drilling mounting holes back offset from oem locations. With AMC or modded saddle for coil over shocks, there is no need to do any other mods. For me I did a lot of rework, mostly because it's not stock.

On a budget without spending on coil overs, you can use Mustang spring saddles with amc pins. It will drop you by 2" though you will need to use Ford springs. I modified my system to use 70 Mustang shock towers, they fit just fine over stock mounting studs. Just drill new mounting holes and move studs to the new mounting locations. It gives you a ton more shock options for you.

It will put you into the 4" drop range with the spindle drop plate. I would do the Ford Mustang springs and saddle change first and see how much drop you can work with. It won't require offsetting the spring perch mount, since your only dropping 2" max with suspension travel at rest.

On fix for better geometry is to use a longer or spaced upper ball joint.
A cheap alternative is GM truck, but modification to the AMC upright stud hole diameter and upper arm needs to be done. You can cut 1/2" to 3/4" Thick plate or block to make custom spacers to drop the AMC upper ball joint.



Edited by 304-dude - Aug/10/2020 at 6:08am