Raising the C5
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Joined: Aug 2018
Posts: 80
Likes: 7
From: San Diego County, CA
St. Jude Donor '21
For the front, you will need to make some clearance between the control arm and the rubber pad on the bottom of the adjuster at the end of the leaf spring with either the special tool or a jack and a block of wood, and then you can go rightey -tightey on the 10mm at the top of the threaded adjuster to raise the front.
I posted specifications and measurements for ride heights and trim in another thread.
Thread Starter
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Joined: May 2019
Posts: 89
Likes: 17
Well, the rear went smoothly. Not so the front. The adjusting bolts are are frozen. I even went out and bought a six point 10mm socket and could tell it was going to spin on the bolt. I am going to remove the leaf spring and deal with them on the workbench. I dare not attempt to heat it for I will certainly ruin the composite leaf spring. Any ideas on how I might loosten the adjuster bolts?
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Thread Starter
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Joined: May 2019
Posts: 89
Likes: 17
Well, I was able to break the bolts free and here is how I went about it. `I removed the leaf spring- it is a relatively easy job. There are two videos on YouTube that address this. One is by "Froggy" and the other is "Scruf's Garage". The control arms on one side (I picked the driver's side) have to be removed. Froggy removed the ball joint whereas Scruf removed the control arm to chassis bolts. I chose the latter method although I removed both the upper and lower control arms and pulled the entire assembly out. This made removing the leaf spring a snap. Make sure you mark the position of the cam washers on the lower control arm. When I had the spring on the bench, I carefully wire brushed as much of the rust on both sides of the bolts as I could reach and hit them with penetrating oil. Where the bolts contact the spring, there is a rubber pad backed by a thick washer. The washer is part of the bolt and I put a fairly large pipe wrench on it and it broke free. I carefully worked the bolt back and forth wire brushing the threads and applying anti-seize until I was able to remove it without damaging the female threads. I am going to replace the bolts- the rubber pad is in poor condition.
Thread Starter
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Joined: May 2019
Posts: 89
Likes: 17
Now that I've done it, 2 hours to remove- I have a lift. The problem facing me now is finding OEM quality adjusting bolts. Fortunately they are available from chevy. Unfortunately they are only available as part of the spring assembly (How thoughtful of them).The aftermarket ones look cheap.
