96 Regal Suspension and Auxillary Spring Question

[The Guz]

I recently changed out the struts on my parents 96 regal limited. Everything went smooth. The only thing that I was not able to reinstall was the auxillary springs due to not having the tool. I don't see a problem with not having it installed as the strut does most of the work. Is there any draw back from not having it reinstalled? The rubber is in good shape considering the age of the car. Would it be recommended to put it back in? Also what is the best way to reinstall it?

 

Thanks

Mike

Edited April 24, 2011 by The Guz

[mfewtrail]

There are no adverse effects when removing the auxillary springs. Here's a quote from another member here that gives a bit of detail about what they do. I haven't had them on my 1993 Grand Prix since spring 2002 for what it's worth.

 

The aux springs give a progressive nature to the stock leaf. It softens the small bumps without having any effect on larger bumps.

 

I pulled mine, because their brackets were in the way of the 94+ rear calipers. Mine were the cylindrical type, not the figure 8 style, so I don't know what's better or why, all I know is they don't make brackets to fit the cylinder type with the 94+ rear calipers or else I'd put them back on.

 

Removing them definitely stiffens the ride, as well as raising the ride height.

I need to get ahold of some that fit with 94+ rear calipers so maybe my rear "lowering spring" will actually look like one.

[The Guz]

Thanks for the info. It look as though my dad want's to put the aux springs back in. I am not sure if places like autozone rent the tool. But other than that what is a good way of compressing them to get them reinstalled. I looked at the car and it does not sit any hiher than with the aux springs on. I read some other threads and I was not aware that the bolt that came with the new struts was to compresss the aux springs before taking them off. The car rides pretty good.

[GOT2B GM]

Leave them out, not worth the hassle

[Crazy K]

upgrade rear swaybar instead.

[mfewtrail]

Thanks for the info. It look as though my dad want's to put the aux springs back in. I am not sure if places like autozone rent the tool. But other than that what is a good way of compressing them to get them reinstalled. I looked at the car and it does not sit any hiher than with the aux springs on. I read some other threads and I was not aware that the bolt that came with the new struts was to compresss the aux springs before taking them off. The car rides pretty good.

 

One more vote for leaving them out.

 

If you do put them back though, you don't need anything overly special to compress them. I've compressed some off-car before using a small bench mounted vice. I held the assembly with a large pair of channel locks just to make sure it wouldn't slip out of the vice. It didn't take a lot of compression to get the bolt started. Scroll through this section and look for titles with auxillary spring or similar in the title to find the bolt size you need. I know I posted the size 1-2 times recently in other threads in this section.

[The Guz]

upgrade rear swaybar instead.

 

If it were mine, then I would go ahead and install one. I'll search the forum for what it needed to get one installed.

 

For the meantime I told them to drive it a little bit to break in the suspension. If all is well then I will tell him to just leave them off. I do have the bolt that came with the new strusts. I did not know what it was for until I searched on the forum for a bit.

Edited May 3, 2011 by The Guz