Getting a '73 Swinger Back on the Road
Going back and looking at the dates on the pictures, it took me almost 2 years to get that part of the project completed. During that time I distracted myself from the slow pace of bodywork by doing a few other things the car needed.
I liked the wheels that were on the car and even though they’re only 14 inchers, I thought they looked good enough to keep. I cleaned them up and repainted the black areas
Next up was the leaf springs. They were sagging badly and someone thought the way to correct that was to add longer shackles to the back.
The front was a similar situation where his “fix” for the worn out torsion bars was to crank up the adjusters and when that still didn’t cut it, he got a set of front tires with a taller sidewall. They’d rub when the steering wheel was turned full lock, but the cheapo headers would still scrape the ground when you went over a dip in the road. I changed those out too, but didn’t take any pictures of that. The bottom line there is, don’t rely on band-aid fixes; when parts are worn out, replace them.
Going back and looking at the dates on the pictures, it took me almost 2 years to get that part of the project completed. During that time I distracted myself from the slow pace of bodywork by doing a few other things the car needed.
I liked the wheels that were on the car and even though they’re only 14 inchers, I thought they looked good enough to keep. I cleaned them up and repainted the black areas
Next up was the leaf springs. They were sagging badly and someone thought the way to correct that was to add longer shackles to the back.
The front was a similar situation where his “fix” for the worn out torsion bars was to crank up the adjusters and when that still didn’t cut it, he got a set of front tires with a taller sidewall. They’d rub when the steering wheel was turned full lock, but the cheapo headers would still scrape the ground when you went over a dip in the road. I changed those out too, but didn’t take any pictures of that. The bottom line there is, don’t rely on band-aid fixes; when parts are worn out, replace them.
