| All the way from the beginning my plan was to install airbags at every corner, sooner or later. I quess there were several reasons why I kept the front springs this far. First, I remember I was anxious to get the chassis ready during summer 2002, so I could drop the engine and body on it before winter. More important, airbags were relatively scarce in Finnish rods & customs because of regulations, and I elected not to pioneer this technology through the authorities, but rather have the car registered and inspected without trouble. Well, things have changed over a period of two years, and now there shouldn't be any major obstacles with the inspectors. |
 Now
that I had to disassemble the front end anyway to rebuild the other
lever
shock (which started leaking during the fall), it was time for
installing
bags. Buick's lever-shock design lends itself perfectly to bag
installation
- no need to relocate shocks!
At the early stages of front suspension rebuild, I had the foresight of welding a "blind" steel plate on the lower A-arm spring pocket, and even drilled the plate for Firestone mounting pattern. However, why buy Firestone or Air Lift bags from the USA when I can source Dunlop bags locally at a fraction of the cost? So I redrilled the plates for Dunlop pattern, and bought a pair of Dunlop 2-bellow 6" diameter bags. The 6" bags are a bit small in diameter for the weight of the car, but there's no way I could make 8" bags fit into the given space. We'll see how it turns out. In this picture, you'll see the upper mount I fabricated. It is attached to the frame with 2 screws but it has 4 tapped mounting holes, so I can rotate the mount to get the tubing exit into the direction I want, varying from side to side. The mount itself is made of stainless. |
 The
suspension travel is very limited in 1940's Buicks, so even a 1-rib bag
might have sufficed. However, a 2-rib bag allows for more angle
variation.
Here you see the suspension at its highest point of travel, so the
distance
of the jounce bumper to the frame is about equal to a full suspension
travel.
Still missing
in this picture,
is the new, thicker stabilizer bar. The inexpensive End Link Bushing
Kit
will come from an 80's GM fullsize. Probably most anything would work -
they all look the same. Update 2005: The front of the Buick
is heavy, so the 6" bag needs a lot of pressure, in the range of 7 bar
(105 psi) |
| Not pictured
here, but I
also rebuilt the factory option "Weather Warden Venti-Heater", which is
the underseat heater, and absolutely necessary in the Finnish summer
;-)
The heater core was fine and just needed a flush, but the blower motor needed to be converted to 12 volts. I used a leftover motor from a late 70's Malibu, which needed a little tweaking to mount on the blower housing. Then I just converted the OE fan to match the shaft of the new motor. Then I also disassembled the 605 Power Steering Box and replaced the seals. One leakage less. At least I don't have to carry so many different lubricant bottles with me next summer, LOL |