front coil springs

[grant mills]

After reviewing all the postings on this site, I have ordered a set of coil springs from O'Reilly...SP08055...which are a match to MOOG CC655....which have been touted as a very close replacement for the original front springs. Given the problems with cross border shopping, I am hoping to get them in about a week.  My question  is: do they require any spacers? The photos of side to side comparisons I have seen make them seem just slightly shorter than the original...or does it not matter and  I just get a bit more rake.

[mfg]

On 8/15/2024 at 5:56 PM, grant mills said:

After reviewing all the postings on this site, I have ordered a set of coil springs from O'Reilly...SP08055...which are a match to MOOG CC655....which have been touted as a very close replacement for the original front springs. Given the problems with cross border shopping, I am hoping to get them in about a week.  My question  is: do they require any spacers? The photos of side to side comparisons I have seen make them seem just slightly shorter than the original...or does it not matter and  I just get a bit more rake.

Please keep us posted on how you like those new springs… I’m in the market for a new pair of front coils myself!

[Stefan B.]

On 8/17/2024 at 3:43 PM, mfg said:

Please keep us posted on how you like those new springs… I’m in the market for a new pair of front coils myself!

Hi Ed,
I would like to ask you a question concerning a Speedster I am considering to buy. Sorry to jump in here in this discussion, I tried to send a direct message but that did not work. Would it be possible that you check if the car is in your lists and give me some info on it if it is? - also via personal message or e-mail (stefan.bergsmann@chello.at), whatever is best for you. The VIN is 7165903, Body No. 6H K7 1507 and Engine No. P 16935. As far as I know the car was owned by a Mr. Gene Upstill before it was sold to Europe ~2017.

It would really be great if you could help me on that. As I am new in the Stude realm and am located in Europe, it is not so easy for me to find the right info and sources.

Again apologies for jumping in and also for bringing this up here in the AOAI - I simply did not know how to contact you on a different way. 

Thank you & best wishes from Vienna,
Stefan
Vienna, Austria

 

[grant mills]

Well, after many months I have almost finished the front suspension. It has been a litany of incorrect parts and learning new(old) things about the car. First, I was lucky to have a cousin in Vancouver with a business that had a warehouse in Washington state (and a US bank credit card) O'Reilly will not ship to Canada, nor will they accept credit cards based on non-US banks (That means my American Express from a canadian branch is not accepted) Once received, the local shop did a good job of replacing bushings on A-arms, king pins and bell crank. Now, a few words of caution.

If you have a 1" front sway bar, I have only found 2 sources for replacing the bushings. One is Dave Thibeault who, if I understood correctly from our conversation, make a bracket that fits the old Avanti support but accepts the new style of bushings which are too small for the old bracket. Essentially a smaller bracket. The other is Dan Booth (at Nostalgic) who sells bushings that fit the old bracket, but had been modified by Avanti after they stopped installing 1" sway bars and moved to 7/8" bars. Since Avanti had a large lot of the 1" hole bushings, they glued an insert into the hole to bring its size down. I went with Dan's bushings and ground out the insert to bring the hole back to 1" (dremel w/ steel grinder works slow but effective) It easily slide onto the sway bar (using plenty of liquid dish soap to smooth the bar). I am now waiting on a refund for the "wrong external sized" bushings I mailed back to "Avanti International Inc." over a month ago

Second word of caution: Any aftermarket front shock is NOT going to fit. DO NOT believe RockAuto when they advertise their replacement shocks for any pre-86 Avanti. Those shocks ALL have a 3" long base plate (end to end) while the centers of the two stove bolts that hold them to the lower A-arm are 3.5" apart (the Lark chassis). They cannot be secured. I had order KYB shocks and dealing with their support desk, I was told they have NO shocks with a wider plate on the bottom. "Gabriel" automatically acknowledged that I asked them about this issue and would get right back to me....but crickets. In the end, RockAuto acknowledged the problem, indicating that many other Avanti owners had complained about the same thing and offered me a refund (and paid return shipping) even though I was months over their return date policy. Given problems with returning parts across the border, I decided to build brackets  for the lower supports. Using 3/16" flat steel, I cut eight 2" pieces from a 1" wide piece. I then gouged out a U shape from one side, approximately 1/4" deep in four of them. It is about 1" wide and tightly surrounds the flange of the shock. I next drilled out a 3/8" hole beyond the cutout and ground away the metal to join the two. The other 4 simply had a 3/8" hole drilled at one end. Now I will (and hopefully it will work having just finished the grinding an hour ago and still wanting to do a little more precision filling) attach the extensions to the 3/16" thick shock supports. and use the other single hole plate to act as a clamp, covering both the new extension and the base of the shock. It may be that there are suppliers that have front shocks with the wider support base, but I have been at this all summer and have gotten tired of the parts misunderstandings I had with some suppliers.

I strongly recommend Dan Booth at Nostalgic and am thank full to Dave Thibeault for suggesting him as an alternative to his product. I had easily ordered from Nostalgic years back but had mistakenly thought they had retired.

[Footer]

Grant, have you reinstalled your swaybar, and how big of a battle was that?  I have a new 7/8” for the front of mine, and my new bushings need to be opened up also. Mike

[mfg]

Wow! you went through heck on that lower shock mount…. but kept swinging until you resolved the issue… Well done!!

[grant mills]

Mike, If you have a 7/8" sway bar, the bushings from Dan Booth (Nostalgic) would be a perfect fit if you are using the original brackets, and would need NO opening up. They are meant for the 7/8" sway bar. Where did you get the bushings such that they are too small (assuming about 3/4" hole diameter)? Remember that the correct bushings may seem tight, but liberal use of dishwasher soap on both the interior hole and the sway bar should make things much easier.  I have not yet installed the bar, but I have the interior bushings in place and it is just a matter of making some supports to hold one end of the bar as I first work on the other end (cross my fingers)

If you are stuck with too small bushings, I used a dremel w/ steel cutting rod at the end of the shank. It was small and started to make cavities along the interior. I would then switch to the largest grinding stone that would fit in the hole (or to the largest sandpaper drum) again with the dremel. This larger stone/sandpaper would smooth out the hole. I needed the high speed to be able to cut out the rubber quickly. The steel cutting rod does fast removal and the larger grinders do proper, slower, finishing work. An electric hand drill just does not have the RPMs that are needed to cut the rubber.