firming up and lowering mk4 cortina estate

[stuartp]

A bit of advice please



my 79 estate sits a bit high for my liking and also wanders a bit and pulls slightly to the left



If I get a set of front polybushes like these (I wouldn't necessarily use all of them I expect)

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/390380590543?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&clk_rvr_id=469300033835&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649



and shorter springs - although my main issue with the springs is that it's an estate so i'm not sure if the rear ones should be a different



these 4cm ones maybe?

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200803466166?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&clk_rvr_id=469295749774&_trksid=p3984m1423.l2649

or burtons have up to 2"

www.burtonpower.com/catalogue-2013/cat-2013-page-141.html



that'd do it right?



this is it as it is now btw

[rodney]

or you could go to a spring company and get some made cheaply to your spec , and if you can , get some new standard or uprated shocks , will transform the car

[bortaf]

Ral-des used to be the cheapest for springs? less than £120 a set anyway and yes the springs are the same as saloon
i wouldn't go more than 2 inches lowerd or you get into excessive camber issuse on the front, i'd deffo go for gas shocks on the front, they get worked very hard and oil shocks can overheat with a lot of spirited driving

[alolympic]

If you car is wandering and pulling to the left, I wouldn't start with new springs.
Get a 4 wheel alignment done and see what is going in. It may just be your toe that is out, but it maybe more serious, so I would get it checked over first.

[stuartp]

Apr 18, 2013 13:48:06 GMT alolympic said:

If you car is wandering and pulling to the left, I wouldn't start with new springs.
Get a 4 wheel alignment done and see what is going in. It may just be your toe that is out, but it maybe more serious, so I would get it checked over first.

already had it looked at and they said it was most likely knackered bushes. can't hurt to get a second opinion though I guess

[stuartp]

Apr 18, 2013 13:22:05 GMT bortaf said:

Ral-des used to be the cheapest for springs? less than £120 a set anyway and yes the springs are the same as saloon
I wouldn't go more than 2 inches lowerd or you get into excessive camber issuse on the front, i'd deffo go for gas shocks on the front, they get worked very hard and oil shocks can overheat with a lot of spirited driving

certainly don't plan on more than 2" and I drive it like a granddad

I wasn't actually planning on changing the shocks at all - is that naïve thinking?

[unitybonez]

Knackered bushes will make the car wander a hell of a lot. Ask me how i know
The trick when i was on static was to find the estate front springs and use them on the rear, while up front I'm not sure i remember what i had, but probably its og ones minus a few turns. But the ones on your link seem fine.
2" is not enuff to worry about anything imo. And if you really drive like a granpa keep the stock shocks if they aint shot.
Ive been drivin a taunus (same as a 'tina) for almost 7 years with as many suspension set ups as you can think.

[unitybonez]

Also poly bushes will stiffen it up some and might get sqeeky as hell! Althou that might be a problem for adjustable suspension only, but don't quote me on it, and ask around.
The sqeek my poly bushes got on the rear upper arms was so bad it sounded like the car was foldin like a wallet! WD40 cures it completley but I'm slowly replacing with rubber again..

Also, the proper way to go low other than hydros to me would be coilovers, but that would be more than 2"..

[popuptoaster]

My mk5 had -2" slightly uprated rally design springs, gas Spax dampers and was fully polybushed. It handled well enough to stay in front of a stock evo 7 (25 years of cortina driving, large testicles and 220bhp helped). Was a bit twitchy on the limit but the limit was way faster than a stock wobbly cortina.

If you do nothing else, poly bush it.

[danburger28]

Think if it was me, I'd poly bush, and get the burton springs. Ive got -2" springs on mine, and it sits really nicely. Camber on the front looks ok, but does wear the inner edge of tyres a fair bit. I think there is a way to correct this with Mk3 bits, which I want to do eventually, but I still need more info!

[stuartp]

if I get that flo-flex front set how many of them are going to be easy enough for a suspension fiddling amateur to fit on the driveway with no special tools do you reckon?

i'd love to do the springs and shocks myself too but always had a bit of a phobia when it comes to removing suspension bits

[bortaf]

Bushes from them can go either way IME easy as pie or a total pain in the @ss but i havn't fitted any for a couple of years but did like 15 sets before that.
2 inches is enough as stated at that drop the inner edges will still wear out way quicker than normal in every day use and your getting near the working limit (not the actuall locking up limit) of the ball joint.

[stuartp]

Apr 24, 2013 11:07:18 GMT bortaf said:

2 inches is enough as stated at that drop the inner edges will still wear out way quicker than normal in every day use and your getting near the working limit (not the actuall locking up limit) of the ball joint.

do you reckon going for the 4cm (inch and half) ones rather than the 2" would be any better in terms of wear or is any lowering going to do it?

[bortaf]

TBH mate 1 inch is a waist of time cos it will just sit where the old tierd springs have it at the mo LOL and it wont look any differant, 2 inch is sort of the best workable limit, 3 is OK but wear speads up a lot compaired to 2 inch and as i say 1 inch is where it will be sitting now after a few years on tierd springs, they did sit fooking high when new
you can re-drill the lower arm inner pivot holes to get the wheel back upright (ish) again or the lower B/J can move a few mm in or the upper B/J out VV slightly, then you can go lower without the wear problem

[stuartp]

right, i'm going 2" then, probably with new shocks on the front and as many bushes as is necessary to firm it all up!

still not clear on the springs for the back but if it has a bit / lot of rake for a while it's better than being the other way round!

[bortaf]

At least with the rear springs having a pig tail at the top you can chop em down a bit at a time to get it ro sit right

[dude]

Apr 25, 2013 14:04:35 GMT stuartp said:

right, i'm going 2" then, probably with new shocks on the front and as many bushes as is necessary to firm it all up!

still not clear on the springs for the back but if it has a bit / lot of rake for a while it's better than being the other way round!

I ran chopped springs and volvo 240 gas dampers at the back of mine which firmed it up quite a bit. They are also shorter, keeping the springs in place if you chop a lot.
I've heard that polybushing the rear end makes a huge difference due to the four link. I never got around doing mine although it had loads of sideways play.

For the front you should also look into the subframe bushes.

[dgo]

If you want to experiment before buying, then as suggested above Cortina springs can be cut down and you can do that carefully and progressively. On the rear you can get them out easily by just undoing the shocks and lifting the spring out, on the front you need a spring compressor and must cut only from the fully round end (the bottom) not the flattened end.

reducing spring length has the added benefit of stiffening the spring a bit (due the the nature of coil springs)

Replace the bushes with good new ones (check the tie bar bushes, quite likely the source of wandering) and make sure whatever you do to the springs there's enough length remaining when the suspension's all back together on full drop that the spring remains safely and properly located in place. Personally I'd only take off a little bit (say a quarter of a turn) at a time though I'm sure there must be a few people on the site here who've got good experience of this and can advise you better than me

Then you can decide if you want to go further and buy new springs

[popuptoaster]

Its difficult doing the front ones if you don't have much experience as there isn't much room. I always used the compressors shaped like this and they will fit in with a bit of fiddling.



don't buy cheap crappy ones, you don't want them breaking or slipping with that spring in there, get the ones that have a socket in the end you can plug a ratchet into, it makes using them far nicer.