Need static ride height measurement

[Tedybear]

Hello all!

It's time to get the camber issue worked out on my BII (specs and photos in sig and such). As anyone can tell? The top of my tires are pretty well tilted enough to cause some severe wear on my front tires. The local Monroe shop urged me to replace the front springs before attempting an alignment.

Before I toss more money at the ol' beast? I'd like to check the ride height first hand and do a proper measure job. Yeah anyone can look at it and go "Gee...saggy". But I'd like to know how bad/good things are so I can justify shelling out 80 or so for front springs.

So I need someone with access to an alignment spec book to help (of course, this BII is 'stock', no lifts or body mod's)

I know there is preset spots to measure from suspension to suspension part and that measurement will tell me if the springs are saggy...and how bad.. So if anyone has info for an 89 BII RWD, with A/C and auto. If someone can look up the chart and let me know the specs, and where to take the measurement? I'd be a very happy camper!!

Thanks all!!

S-

 

[doorgunner]

I have no idea (street-truck owner)....but seems to me that you could put a heavy duty floor jack undr the engine crossmember/
measure the coil springs from top to bottom as it sits/
then jack up the floorjack making sure jack lifts both wheels equally until a carpenters level shows that the wheels are perpendicular to the ground while they still have sufficient weight on them......

this will give you a pretty good idea of how much the coils have collapsed over the years....

then you can use a spring height chart to decide which coil springs will bring the vehicle back to stock ride height.....

 

[Tedybear]

When I used to do alignments 'back in the day'. (we had an old "Bear" bubble alignment system) We had a spec book that listed toe, camber, caster, and ride height specs. This way we could check for weak springs and bad suspension before attempting the alignment. It made sense, why spend $49 on an alignment if the car/truck had toasted springs. (Yep, $49 for the alignment. spend $89 and get a life time alignment)

The procedure? Measure from a listed spot on the suspension to a fixed spot on the frame or some such point. Most likely for a truck would be from the I-Beam or control arm to a rubber bumper. Let's say a good set of springs would have a 5" clearance from the arm to bumper. Weak springs? Might have 3 1/2 or 4" clearance from the same place. That would throw off the camber of the tires a great deal! (It would have no effect on caster, that's a different adjustment).

Somewhere out here there should be someone with a spec book for alignments that knows that stock measurement and the exact position to measure it from. I'll probably wind up heading over to Monroe and see if I can peek at their alignment setup. Everything is computerized now, so it should just be a simple search.

S-