Ugh, I must’ve jinxed myself by making that post. I have not been able to finish the right side reassembly yet, and so my suspension mod is terminal until I can get untracked and finish this last bolt on the rear.









Once I do that, I can move on to the fronts, but they won’t be nearly as PitA as the rears...(hopefully, but who knows at this point)

Oh well, in the meantime I can at least look my pretty blue springs!

 

Oddly enough I only have 1 or 2 decent side-on shots of the car that could qualify as Before pics. I’ll attach them to this post so you can see the 4x4 ride height I am so set on reducing.







Unfortunately I will still be rolling on the 18” cop stealies for now, so the After look won’t be what I ultimately want it to look like, but it will at least be lower to the ground and sans that annoying cavernous wheel gap above the tires in all 4 corners. And that’s a start!

Relevant specs and details:

- before ride heights are 30” and 31” front/back respectively (measured from ground to bottom of wheel well thru center cap)

- OE suspension is all HD (std for Pursuit pkg) with self-leveling Sachs shocks in rear ( Nivomat equivalents basically) and HD struts in front.

- Rear self -leveling shocks replaced with non-HD/non-self-leveling shocks OTC but likely will be replaced with Bilsteins later.

- front HD struts will be reused with new springs (they are almost brand new, why not) but likely replaced later with Bilsteins.

- wheels and tires are OE 18x7.5” steal wheels with 225/60/18 Firestone Firehawk Pursuits all the way around (will be sorry to see those tires go when they wear out, frigging great tires for wet roads and keeping traction in general). These will eventually be replaced with 20” rims & tires, but exact design or make is TBD.

 

FINALLY got that lower control arm bolt in, WOO-HOO!!

So now the rears are done, but I still have to do the fronts. I’m not too worried about those, as I’ve got much more practice removing and disassembling/reassembling the struts, so I don’t expect them to take 2 days to get done...but then again, I do drink a lot when I’m turning wrenches, so we’ll see...

Anyway, I am happy to report the rear springs did drop the car’s ride height in the back, and it is almost exactly 1” like they advertise. So that’s good.

No After pics yet, as I just finished and there is literally a tornado warning for the storm currently raising hell over the top of me. So pics will have to hold off until I see if we survive this sudden (possible) twister...

Gert, OUT! (hopefully not for the last time though)

 

Before (w/ OE rear springs & OE load-leveling shocks):



After (w/ Mopar Stage 1 rear springs and aftermarket shocks):


Measured drop last night after install was 1” exactly. It looks like it may dropped a little more in the 50 miles since, but haven’t re-measured yet.

Going to replace the front springs tonight. Will post up some pics after that to show their drop in front.