1961 Buick LeSabre Suspension Upgrade

Are you planning to rebuild the rear suspension?

 

Everything looks good back here, so I am just going tonreplace the springs. I think the previous owner replaced some of that. The track bar bushings are good. I am not really looking for anything more to do.

 

If you install those dropped spindles, make sure your brake calipers are not binding on the steering arm. I had to do some grinding to provide clearance. I didnt see this at first and wondered why I couldn't get a good brake pedal.

 

Well, my alignment tech and I got a surprise last week. Apparently, these cars came with NEGATIVE caster and some positive camber.....plus it's a bitch to get to the upper control arm bolts. Definitely a 2 man job. We ended up with some large stacks of shims just to get .3 degrees of negative camber and ended up with about 1 degree of negative caster. I wanted 2 degrees of positive caster at least.

I am thinking about buying a couple of used upper control arms and shortening them up. I would shorten the back side more to give me the caster. Have any of you done this? @telriv ?

 

Just a couple things to mention for future folks reading this post...

I bought the Addco rear bar years ago. It was close but the bends did not match the inward angle of the rear trailing arms. After some back and forth, the bar I got was "to spec", so they ended up bending me a custom bar that fit like a glove.

On the Viking products, I was an engineer for them years back (that's why the full-size Buick is in their catalog). The rear shocks are actually supposed to be mounted inverted (knobs at the top) and come with an extended eyelet. This provides enough clearance for either a polyurethane bushing or spherical bearing. I can provide pics if you'd like, otherwise your method works. Just check for stress cracks in the welds periodically, especially if the shocks are cranked up. You'd be surprised how much compression and rebound force they generate.

It's also been a number of years but I talked with UMI Performance at one point about their front control arms and rear trailing arms for the 59-64 GM B-Body. I recall some of the components being awfully close to bolting in.

 

A Viking tech told me it was OK to mount them upside down but I didn't have the extended eye and I like the way I ended up with them. This will be a cruiser so no really stiff settings will be used, although I think my mount is at least as strong as original. Thanks for the feedback and the lead on bushings.

 

Well, after almost 2 months, I got the rear bar. The angle of the arms doesn't match the trailing arms angle. Do you happen to have a part number or sales order number for what they ended up making for you?

 

Rear bar installed and front bar should be here next week.

 

I got my new 1 1/4" Addco front sway bar installed. (The bar was not exactly a bolt in replacement. I had to make an adapter that moved it forward 1 1/4".) Wow, what a difference it made. Also, I moved the rear bar to be on top of the adapter plates.

After dialing in 1/4" of toe in (shop manual calls for 3/16-9/32") it drives great. Before I changed the toe in, I had it at 1/8" and the car wandered, since it has no positive caster. Bumping it up to 1/4" makes it hold a straight line and the sway bars have it cornering great. So, new springs, some bushing and ball joint replacement, new idler arm, double adjustable shocks and HD sway bars made this big boat drive great. Can't wait to take it on a road trip. Thanks, Tom!

 

Update. After the new wore off of my above post, I got tired of the "wandering" front suspension, I tried to get a local shop to make me some upper control arms to give me 2 degrees of positive caster. Best we could do with the originals was -1 degree. After waiting for nearly a year on the local shop, I decided to make my own. It really wasn't hard to do. I bought a used pair off eBay and moved the upper ball joint back about 3/4". (I did have an extra junk control arm that I cut the small pieces out of. It was not a 61, however.) I just got back from the alignment shop and the improvement is dramatic. I'm kicking myself for not doing this a year ago. My 61 now drives as well as my 65 Riviera. I am very happy about that.