Lowering Rearend Pros and Cons?

Not to thread-jack, but Im curious as well, I want to lower the rear of my 76 about 1.5in. I was thinking of just pulling a leaf out, but ive heard mixed opinions on that.

I used 1" lowering mono leafs and couldn't be happier. Rides good no issues if someone is in the back either.

Either way is fine. A lowering block is cheaper, only 30bucks or so. New leaf springs are 200 to 350 or so. I don't like taking a spring out becuase it will really weaken the springs all together.

But you have to ask yourself, how much horsepower does your car make? If it makes a lot there a few steps when using lowering blocks that you need to take to ensure they don't come out, but lowering blocks should be fine.

How low do you want to go?

Both new leafs and blocks will ride fine imo.

But since your getting new leaf springs you can order them up to 2inches lower and just slap them in there.

If you're loohing to improve ride quality I would recomend buying adjustable shocks. I got Varishocks double adjustable shocks from CBR and was able to adjust them for a better ride and better handling.
If you want to lower the rear you might consider just having youre stock monos de-arched to the height you want. It should cost about $100 to do the pair if you remove them and take them to a spring shop.

I beleive both sets of monos are just worn out after 50 years of service. The wagon recently started sagging on one side, and both cars squat down as passengers the passenger count goes up. I think it best to just start with a fresh solid foundation and tweak from there. If there is no major advantage to lowered springs, or disadvantage to lowering blocks, I will most likely go with stock replacements and blocks. Seems like it would give me a bit more options and control over setting height and / or changes.

Shocks are still a question. I think I may go with QA single adjustables in the Vert to compliment the QA coilovers and CBR set up in the front. I may try something else in the wagon.

I made my 2 1/2" blocks.They have to be milled with an angle on them to maintain a the correct pinion angle. I also have side locks on them to prevent the blocks from shifting out of location. I have a stock 5.7 Iroc engine(with Sanderson headers and no TPI) so not much horsepower. For shocks I went with Rancho 9 way adjustable. I had to narrow the lower polyurathane bushing around .100 each side. A very sharp knike with oil was used to cut them.

Never used lowering blocks before, but looks simple and cheap enough. There seems to be a lot of companies who sell lowering block kits, with very little product description. :turn: Is there a lowering block vendor who makes a superior product compared to others?

I have read something about the possiblity of blocks slipping out That might hurt, especially if it happens on while I am pressing a twisty Ozark road. Is block slip a common problem, and should I plan on adding something that would assure this never happen?