I'm sure this has been done a million times but I've looked through the last 100 days and haven't seen it so here we go again.

I have a '67 coupe with the monoleaf rear which is now soft and noisy. What's the accepted wisdom on whether to go to multileaf, polyurethane bushings or stick to stock. From the power side I have a 327 which is very healthy and I can provide an awesome display of wheel hop in first or going to into second so I assume more metal in the springs might help.

Can some of you let me know if this is worth it and how much of a pain it is and also who makes the best stuff.

It is kind of a pain in the behind, but there is an alternative.

Vette Brakes sells fiberglass mono leaf springs. They have many advantages: supposed to negate the need for traction bars, much lighter than steel, and they will never sag. They do cost $450, but I think you'll spend close to that in a conversion to multi-leaf springs.



------------------
Hugger Orange & white 69 Camaro with supercharged 350, Tremec TKO, and 3.73 12-bolt

One of the downsides of swapping to multi's is the perch. I've heard of people doing this without swapping perches, but wouldn't recommend it. My .02 worth, if you're on a budget replace the mono's with new mono's, replace the old rubber bushings with poly's and install slapper bars.

------------------
67 Camaro LS6 454/TH400/12bolt 3.73

I switched to the Vette Brakes fiberglass monoleafs on my '69. The spring perch issue was irrelevant because I went with a 9" rear and Chrysler spring perches - gusseted up and fully welded. I used the stock lower plate and ran u-bolts around the axle tube. I also have polyurethane bushings and a 2" lowering block.

I'm running in excess of 400 hp - with the Richmond 5-speed and a 2.70 rear gear I have the rough equivalent of 4.11 gears with a conventional 1st gear. I can dump the clutch and shred the tires. No hint of wheel hop so far - that might change with slicks but I'll never find out.

------------------
Scott
'69 400SB, Richmond 5-speed; '99 HD Road King Classic
www.geocities.com/sdenning1 (http://www.geocities.com/sdenning1)

Where do I find Vette Brakes???? It's not the money. If we own these cars, it's definitely not the money. I want the best performance which means I want my Camaro to drive as well as it can including power and handling.

MCPC
I have a pair of the Vette Product fiberglass monoleafs that I just took off of a 67 Camaro RS. I planned on putting them on E-bay but if you are interested, E-mail me.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by mcpc:
I'm sure this has been done a million times but I've looked through the last 100 days and haven't seen it so here we go again.

I have a '67 coupe with the monoleaf rear which is now soft and noisy. What's the accepted wisdom on whether to go to multileaf, polyurethane bushings or stick to stock. From the power side I have a 327 which is very healthy and I can provide an awesome display of wheel hop in first or going to into second so I assume more metal in the springs might help.

Can some of you let me know if this is worth it and how much of a pain it is and also who makes the best stuff.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hello, a problem a pryor owner of my car had was the front spring perch bolts. Apparently a couple of bolts stripped inside or broke off in the body cavity. The only way to remove the bolts was to air chisel holes in floor board under the carpet behind front seat ahead of rear seat to access the nuts that were welded to floor pan inside body cavity. Thank god they were careful with the chisel on the car. Now unfortunatly I have a new problem....my car is a 67 rs that they put multi-leafs on. When I tried to remove the front spring perches to put new springs on the bolts just spun. The welded nuts that didn't break on the other guys broke on me.
I'm still building the courage to break out the air chisel for the swap. Anybody else run across this problem?

Steve, STOP!!! DO NOT CHISEL THE FLOOR!!!! This is a big misconception started by many who didn't know what they were doing to begin with. Once the nut breaks, you'll need to cut the head of the bolt off with a die grinder or a small cut off wheel. Once accomplished, the front spring pocket will be easily removed. You then can fish out the remaining bolt/nut remnant with needle nose pliers and a small seal pick. (this can be time consuming) Then at many of the aftermarket companies (such as Ground Up) you can buy new flange nuts & bolts. This is a common occurence, but don't cut the floors!!

------------------
67 Camaro LS6 454/TH400/12bolt 3.73

A word of advise - Don't buy the flange nuts for the front spring perches from Classic Industries. They are junk ! I ordered a set, and when I got them I could see that they were of poor quality. They were the type that were made from pressed metal, they didn't have a nut on them. They only had two or three threads on them, and some had splits in the threads. These have to torque to 25-30 ft. lbs; I could only get 10-15 out them before they stripped. I'm not knocking Classic Industries, I have bought a lot of good quality merchandise from them. They did gladly refund the cost. I ended up buying a different type of flange nut & modifying it. In fact, I took an open end wrench, put a strip of duct tape in it so that it would hold a nut, and put it through the opening of the rear frame rail (one on each side) so that I would have at least one strong attachment on each side (at the outside rear bolt).

mcpc -
http://www.vettebrakes.com/

------------------
Scott
'69 400SB, Richmond 5-speed; '99 HD Road King Classic
www.geocities.com/sdenning1 (http://www.geocities.com/sdenning1)

Hey Stevo, Sorry about the big ugly holes in your floor. A previous owner did that butcher job on mine, too. They used a 1/4" drill to make a mess of holes. It's real ugly, but not at the top of my list. They also put in 5 leaf springs on a rear end with mono perches, I've got 3/4" of daylight between the perches and the lower plates. It doesn't seem to be a problem with the PG trans & 327-275, but I'm putting in a Muncie next week and a 406 next year, so I guess I'll have to deal with the mess eventually.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JimM:
Hey Stevo, Sorry about the big ugly holes in your floor. A previous owner did that butcher job on mine, too. They used a 1/4" drill to make a mess of holes. It's real ugly, but not at the top of my list. They also put in 5 leaf springs on a rear end with mono perches, I've got 3/4" of daylight between the perches and the lower plates. It doesn't seem to be a problem with the PG trans & 327-275, but I'm putting in a Muncie next week and a 406 next year, so I guess I'll have to deal with the mess eventually.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

To Cardude, Rons68 and Jim M....Thanks for the great info. I'm always learning something new, and I own 3 of these things. I'll definitely leave my air chisel in the tool box. The springs they put on my car are 5 leaf multi's and my car sits a little high in the rear, they used the right front spring perches, but I can't get the car to settle down. I just put a Ford 9" under it, and I'm thinking about using spacer blocks to lower it a little bit. (1-2") People think I use air shocks (NOT!) I've managed to squeeze 295-50-15 TA's with 10" wheels inside the fenders without cutting. I had to weld 1" square tubing with special shock brackets between frame rails over the rear end to mount shocks. I'm using competition engineering traction bars. It looks clean and trick. Thanks again you guys for the great input. If I can be of any help to you, let me know, I built this car from the ground up.