My daily driver 67 Coronet wagon

[ckessel]

For sure. Having something is better than nothing. Even the bolt ins. But even those are better if welded. I didn't want to cut the floor or have to pull out the interior, so thats what I ended up doing. Chris Birdsong went further by cutting through the t-bar/trans x, to extend to the front rail. Didn't want to get that involved. On my 65, I made the units[ 2X4 .120 wall], extend through the rear rail enough to catch the USCT spring relocation boxes[ all welded together there], cut through the t-bar/trans x to run the unit about 8" into the front rail. The t-bar x got reinforced on 3 sides with ART t-bar caps, plus I added some additional in the exposed areas. Had the floor out. Lots of plug welding, butt welding, lap welding.

 

[ckessel]

The springs are now secured in the car. I cleaned off the u-bolts, nuts, washers, plates with a wire brush. After that, got them all in place and cinched down. When I set the car down on the u-bolts, after letting the jack down, I noticed that the right side was way high in the back. Turned out that the shackle flipped forward. Lh was fine. Ran it back up with the jack and tried to figure out how to get the shackle going in the right direction. Then I had a BFO[ blinding flash of the obvious]. Ratchet Straps! Put straps on both shackles to get some pull on them so they would slant back. Let the jack down some, tighten up the straps. All groovy now. Shocks secured. Now I'm like "my wagon has Bilsteins on it". After that I put the brake backing plates on the tubes with some sealer on the backside. I used the bearing retainer flanges from the green units to help spread the load on the plates for now. I put some urethane seam sealer on the top side of the SFC's,where I couldn't get the MIG gun, to stop any water intrusion. Done for the day.