Not sure I personally like that stance on the factory photo, Car looks lower in back and the white wall is close to getting obscured by the top of the wheel opening.  That's the way I recall a lot on GM cars leaving the factory though.

Standard suspension always seems quick to sag or sit low, but that is the effect of a spring rate for a soft ride that the typical car buyer wanted. It also helps give the low appearance that the designers wanted.

Neat picture BTW.

I think Dave has the 69 Canadian Pontiac assembly manual he got from me. I haven't checked but I'm pretty sure they have the ride heights in them just like the Chevy manuals do, as you mentioned.

Carl Stevenson wrote:

---

I think Dave has the 69 Canadian Pontiac assembly manual he got from me. I haven't checked but I'm pretty sure they have the ride heights in them just like the Chevy manuals do, as you mentioned.

---

 That's good, wasn't sure if the CDN version had them. 

73SC wrote:

---

Not sure I personally like that stance on the factory photo, Car looks lower in back and the white wall is close to getting obscured by the top of the wheel opening.  That's the way I recall a lot on GM cars leaving the factory though.

---

It's funny that the rear wheel opening is lower from the body line/side molding than the front. Almost begs for the opening to be modified or the body's rear end to be jacked-up.

409Safari wrote:

---

Personally, I always try to set my cars to visually have the same space (front and rear) between the top of the fender and the top of the white wall.

The rear of the car in the photo is OK to me, just lower the front a little and it will have a forward stance even when parked.

---

        I respect your thoughts about making it a low rider .   

        In my days of the 60's 70's we all loved to raise them up a bit .   

        I can't get excited about old cars slouching down . (2 cents)

I think we are forgetting that a lot of the cars looked like this factory photo. I don't think the stance was always ideal.

Like this: 

CDN2PLS2 wrote:

---

That's a 427-390 Horse Leavin'

---

      Thats a original 427-390 ordered with 3 speed stick and surprised owner when it arrived with 3 on the tree

The 69 shop manual has The proper stance requirements for all 69 Canadian ponchos. Like just about all GMs in the day the back of the rocker panel was 1/2 closer to the ground than the front with a full tank of gas and no passengers or cargo.

The exception was wagons which were higher front and rear (about 1 in front and 1.5 in back) so they sat dead level. The F40 option was basically the wagon springs on other models so an F40 car sat level and higher. F41 had no effect on ride height so that sat like a standard car.

Seriously? In Manitoba nobody measures height for the safety unless it's ridiculously altered.

Hey, I didn't say this is the way all cars must be, just that if the factory took the time to put out a detailed side profile, this is by and large how -they- thought the car should look.

I've got to dig into more info on the springs. I've had wagon springs in a coupe (a lot of people in the 80s did!) and didn't like it, so I -hope- that's not what F40 (mine's F41, same deal) is about. I was hoping a shorter spring with a higher spring rate.

John mentioned, and I think it's a great tip, that shimming factory springs rather than replacing them is the way to go. The rationale was, I believe, that the spring rate doesn't change with time even if they collapse a little, so if you shim them back to proper height you get the right rate too. Makes sense if true!  I seem to remember there bing about 20 different springs listed in the manual, of which we can now pick "small block, big block, or wagon".

In my scanned version of the parts book I don't have the illustrations section, and that's where the springs are listed (Section 7) 

-- Edited by davepl on Monday 8th of January 2018 12:14:14 PM

-- Edited by davepl on Monday 8th of January 2018 12:16:23 PM