yes the rear cross member was out to repaint etc. I think what your seeing is an optical illusion from the camera angle, here is a side shot.

 

Mine is not as high as yours, but it's still to high for me... Once I get started again, I'm going to pull a leaf, or maybe two, out to get the back end down some.

mardyn

 

Are there any consequences to taking out leafs?

 

There is no reason to remove the leafs

 

a local guy is selling a 68'-'78 corvette 7 leaf spring, he also has a 9 leaf as well like mine. the 7 leaf does not have the arc the 9 does, can I install that 7 leaf into my 74 with out any issue's. It looks longer from tip to tip then the 9 leaf? dumb question but when it's compressed wouldn't it expand lengthwise more?

 

You could also go with a fiberglass aftermarket spring. Near the end of the C3 era only the gymkhana cars had steel rear springs.

 

That will just give you a stiffer ride

 

measured it today, from the rear fender well lip to the ground I'm at 30.250", so at least 2" above the measurement you mentioned? do you guys think that between setting rear alignment & caster + driving it, will drop it 2 ".

 

No, not 2"

 

Hmmm? so what else could it be, the shocks?

 

Do you have the correct spring end bolts? Did you adjust and torque everything like the GM service manual calls for. The big thing is your to torque all the bolts with the weight of the car on the spring.

 

 

I took the stock spring end bolts out and put in 10" ones to drop it because it sat high when I got it. I only have the adjustment nut set about 1" in on the threads

 

Hmmmm.... I'm at 29.5 on the passenger side and 30" on the driver's side.

mardyn

 

rear is 30.25" grnd to center fender well bottom.
front is 27.5" grnd to center fender well bottom.

did a search and found I am not alone with having this problem, seems a lot of people have had the same issue's with replacement springs both steel leafs & mono leafs. most guys ended up going with 8"-10" bolts and hoped the spring settled out with driving. I have always suspected that my vette was in an accident (rear hit) because of repaired body damage I found + obvious replaced suspension parts on the P-side of the vehicle. that said I can only guess that the spring may have been replaced?

I am going to try driving it around as much as I can on nice days (un-tagged) and see if it settles?
thanks for all the input it's greatly appreciated! you guys are a wealth of knowledge & I'm glad I'm part of a forum where people help each other out best they can.
paul

 

found this pic of the car sitting on the new wheels, the half shafts are not parallel with the ground but if the rear settles 2" i can see they'd be closer to parallel. this picture was taken only a day after being on jack stands for 6 months.

 

if you cant find anything else wrong I suspect the spring was over re-arched by a previous owner. With 10" bolts you should be able to get that rear lower than it is currently sitting. Your best bet may be to look into replacing it with a composite single leaf spring.

 

For what it is worth:

I change out rear leaf springs and what I find is the companies are using thicker leafs...regardless of the number of leafs. Which means I need to replace the four bolts to longer bolts where it attaches to the differential cover.

And in most cases....the car needs to be driven to get it to settle in....and I would have a full gas tank when doing it for added weight.

DUB

 

UPDATE ON MY 4X4 -'74 Problem:


when I bought my vette in April 2015 it sat high in the rear like a 4x4 and it was over 31.5" from the ground to the wheel opening lip, I recently found the car had the wrong rear spring (a '78 -up 2.5" 9 leaf instead of a early 2.25" 9 leaf) I had already purchased a 7 leaf to try, so I put it in and "presto" my rear wheel opening lip is at 29" (both sides) and still needs to settle, no more 4x4 look. From what i read on this side the 78 & up C3's where heavier in the rear so the spring was beefier and had a higher spring rate then the narrower '74 spring & the '74 rear was lighter. I presume thats why my cars rear sat so high?
So if you followed this and other threads I had about my project you may agree with my conclusions that this car must have been in an accident or it was 'curbed" in the rear. Someone did some body work on the passenger side rear wheel opening as evidenced by bondo on the inside of the wheel lip in the wheel well,the passenger side trailing arm was a replacement (the drivers side was original) the passenger side rear strut rod was the large end one from a later corvette and the rear leafs where from a later corvette (wider leaf/ worn threads & bolt sides because the leaf was to wide for the ID if the leaf bolts,wrong bolt lengths for the 9 leaf - only had 2-3 threads engaged?). So obviously the repair was half ***'d and done by someone who did not do there home work on C3 parts...yeah they bolted in, but NO they weren't right!

 

Much better!

I removed the top two leaf elements from the spring on my '73, slight improvement in both appearance and ride quality.

mardyn