Lowering blocks

[Patrick]

Hello

Has anybody removed or reduced in height the rear suspension lowering blocks. I fancy a bit more ride height and spring movement and wondered if I could remove them or use shorter blocks (if available)

Also if I did this would I have to also change the ride height at the front so as not to mess up the steering?

[daniels917]

Re: Lowering blocks

You will probubly need some lowering, as without the rear will be very high, if you look at companies dealing with clasic escorts they have block AND shackles to set a variety of hights. raising the front is easy, if it is marina base, just wind up the adjusters at the back of the torsion bar. good luck merv

[b_caswell]

Re: Lowering blocks

Watch out for lowering blocks with an inbuilt 3degree taper! Some Marina Axles had a thin wedge to tip the axle to avoid binding on the U/J. Some lowering blocks had 3degrees (not the group) machined off the block instead of using the wedge. Not all Marinas needed this, it depended on the position of spring plates on some axles. Raising the rear will upset the caster and make the car a bit twitchy. I found a new pair of leaf springs raised the back of the car nearly an inch.

[amalgamated users from prior forum]

Re: Lowering blocks

Message originally posted by: Julian
If memory served me correct the easiest way to convert a Marlin for trialling (only the gentle PCT or class O not the proper rough stuf) was to remove the lowering blocks from the back and move the front torsion bars round a spline. This gave an extra couple of inches of ground clarance No doubt somebody will know better than me though

[neilryland]

Re: Lowering blocks

The tapered blocks are very relevant for the correct propshaft angle. When I changed my rear axle, I forgot they were tapered !!! and put them back in opposing directions which effectively cancelled out the taper - with my O/D gearbox the propshaft is quite short and as a result the U/J's made a hell of a noise when going over humps.

So if your raising the ride height, check the U/J angle is not too extreme.

[Patrick]

Re: Lowering blocks

I'm glad I asked, thanks all. I have found some Escort blocks and U bolts that are 1/2 inch less than the current ones so I will go for those so hopefully not changing the geometry too much, might raise the front on the splines as well. I have measured up the existing blocks and they appear square but clearly that's something I need to keep an eye on.

[stephenhimsworth]

Re: Lowering blocks

Hi Pat, sounds like your more or less sorted now, if you do go down the route of moving the torsion bars round then from memory 1 spline is equal to 40mm raise or lower depending on which way you go, hopefully someone else can confirm this, take care and good luck. Steve Himsworth