BayRay

When driving my 65 Coupe I often get a feeling that it's unstable, especially when changing lanes. If I had to put a name to it I would call it body roll. If anyone has driven the old Army jeep, it had the same feeling. I'm pretty sure the jeep had the same body roll feeling because it also had independent suspension.

Would the addition of a rear sway bar and maybe upgrading the front one help? I'm not looking for a road racing suspension, just like the feeling of a stable car.

Thanks
BayRay

SWCDuke

Body roll has nothing to do with stability. A rear anti-roll bar on a small block without a huge front bar will make it oversteer, which IS unstable. Base suspension C2s handle very well and have modest body roll, but they can destabilize at the limit because they are so neutral and transition into oversteer. If your car has some kind of stability problem, there is something amiss on the chassis. It is NOT a bad design that needs to be re-engineered!

What wheel/tire setup does it have, what cold tire pressure do you maintain, and what are the front and rear alignment settings?

BTW, old army jeeps have solid axles, front and rear, not independent suspension.

Duke

6T7L71CPE

Bay Ray, IMHO, That kinda sounds like bad shocks to me. Do you have Bias or radial tires?

norvalwilhelm

How's the steering box? Has it been rebuilt. I had a similiar problem and after rebuilding the box it went away. The pitman arm bushings tend to wear alot. I had .006 play in my bushings. YOu can buy replacement bushings but they only tighten it up to .003 play and that is still too much. You are looking for under .001. Rebuilt boxes are just mostly reconditioned, new bearings and seals. That doesn't go far enough.
I machine my own bushings after cleaning up the pitman arm. You can get blank bushings and you mashine for a custom fit.
The little washer on the end of the pitman shaft is also very imported for end play.
Tighten the bushings up, reduced the end play, replace the bearings, they are cheap and save the old bearings. The ***** in the old bearings are the same as in the steering box so if you loose one replace it from an old bearing.
A 45 year old car needs a rebuilt box.

MikeM

Bay Ray:

As a retired Army officer, I'm sure you know that the Jeeps of your era did in fact have the swing axle rear suspension. Yes they were really squirely to drive when making fast manuevers on pavement. Many of them actually rolled over. Sorry, I don't recall the model # nomenclature as the bulk of the Jeeps of my generation were the solid axle M-38's but I can relate their handling characteristics to a '65 coupe I own. It drove just like the Jeep you describe. The first week I owned my '65 ('72) I drove it to work to determine what things were wrong with it so when I put it on the jack stands I could fix everything in one lick. About the third day of driving to work, it was raining lightly. I was going in a straight line in the middle lane of the 6 lane inter-state at about 55 mph. Didn't want to go any faster as it felt "twitchy". All of a sudden, the back end of the car felt like it picked up in the air and started to come around to the left. Without going into the details of my masterful driving technique, I did a 360 spin and kept on going. Didn't hit anything.

The fix? The right rear wheel bearing was loose and I replaced it, aligned the rear end and put on a different set of tires. Which one fixed it? I haven't a clue as I changed everything at once. Still own the car to this day and it hasn't had any bad road manners like this since.

But, it had the perception of driving just like that Jeep you were referring to.

Mike


[Modified by MikeM, 5:22 PM 3/8/2004]

bcwaller

As Duke said, Mid-Years are very stable and a small block does not need a rear bar. If the car feels "loose", I would suspect loose suspension parts. How old is the last front and rear suspension rebuild? Are all the trailing arm shims still there? How are the rubber isolators on the rear crossmember? Also, check camber rods, bearings, shocks, etc.

My C2 is very stable and can do lane changes at 80 MPH (on the racetrack) with ease.

BayRay

Thanks for all the replies. It sounds like I might have something amiss with my suspension. I guess I will just have to put it on jackstands and start to check the basics.

I have had the car 75mph and it doesn't pull any direction. However, sometimes I get a weight shifting sensation when changing lanes or going around a gradual curve.

All of my trailing arms shims appear to still be there, they are most likely the originals. Before I bought the vette, the previous owner said all the front bushings had been replaced and they do look new. I cannot attest to the quality of work though. There does seem to be a large number of shims on the upper A-arm. As a matter of fact so many shims the threads do not protrude from the nut. Is this normal? There are the same number on each side if memory serves me correctly.

Anyway, I will start with checking for worn out suspension pieces and go from there.

BTW Duke, your showing your age. I'm one of those runny nosed kids (just turned forty) The solid axle jeeps must have been way before my time. I just retired from the Army after 21 years and all the jeeps I worked on had four wheel independent suspensions with 12 u-joints per vehicle. M151A2 was the model.

Thanks again for everybody responses.
BayRay

TJefferson2020

Gents:

This is particularly interesting to me. I've recently done a frame off on my 64 substituting an 81 chassis for my badly rusted unit. I've experienced the "looseness" and lane wandering handling of the car and have set out to solve the problem. I've installed a 1 1/4" anti sway on the front, a 7/8" anti sway on the rear, Koni adjustables fore and aft, TRW spring on the rear, new Grand Touring springs on the front, new poly bushings, tie rods and ends, heim jointed camber struts, rebuilt steering box with a set of BFG comp TA's on TT wheels.

The car now is much more stable, doesn't wander but is somewhat bouncy on bad roads. On smooth pavement it's rock solid. A mechanic friend of mine (GM certified) says that these cars never handled well and that they are designed for bias ply tires. He claims putting radials on it make it worse. I think he's full of S_ _ t.

Any thoughts?

pm

SWCDuke

When you said "old army jeep" I thought you meant the original WWII type and the early post war civilian versions, a lot of which are still around. I would imagine that when you joined they were all gone. Is the M151A2 a "Humvee" type vehicle or closer to the original jeep from WWII. I'm not quite old enough to be your father - maybe a big brother. ;)

Zora always said not to put radial tires on a Corvette, but it would be tough to find someone with radials on a C2 who was NOT happy as long as there was not something amiss in the suspension. I installed Michelin X radials on my SWC in 1964 and the car was dramatically improved. Bias ply tires are JUNK, and today's repros are probabaly worse than the originals!

I never did figure out why Zora said "no radials".

Even if a Corvette is claimed to be "restored" it may have some ancient suspension components, and "restored" does not mean "tuned". The suspension design is really quite good. If everything in the chassis is in good working order, you have a good alignment, especially a "performance" alignment with negative camber in the front and urethane bushings in the front anti-roll bar links and the best modern 70 series radial tires, these cars handle as well as a modern sport sedan, which is pretty impressive for a 40 year old design.

With the exception of a similar vintage XKE or Ferrari, I don't think any other car in this age group would approach these old Corvette's in overall handling prowess, and they don't ride excessivley hard or harshly either. Even road going Ferraris had solid axle rear suspensions until the 275 series was introduced in '64, a year behind the Sting Ray, but Ferrari did install four-wheel disk brakes on all road cars by about 1960.

When the XKE was introduced in 1961 its four-wheel disk brakes and four-wheel indepedent suspension was state-of-the-art and set a benchmark for other manufacturers.

Duke

JohnZ

When I was Army in the early 60's, the M151 Jeep was "the latest thing", and began killing drivers and passengers at an alarming rate, due to "jacking" of the swing-axle rear suspension (same design as the VW Beetle); subsequently there was a major rework on the rear suspension of all M151's in service (a "camber compensator"-type device, as I recall). That was about the same time the new M-14 rifle was distributed, and the heat from the barrel under sustained fire would catch the wooden forward handgrips on fire; they were all recalled and fitted with ventilated plastic handgrips. Not a great year for the Army's vehicle and weapons development folks. :rolleyes: :eek: :D

Subfixer

I had the same feeling in my 64. Here's a good test. Jack up the rear and holding the tire at the 12 and 6 o'clock positions, see how far you can move the tire. Watch the trailing arm at the same time. If you are able to rotate the wheel inwards and outwards at the top, and the trailing arm is moving, then your bushing is probably shot.
Mine moved quite a bit and that's what I had been feeling when I switched lanes.


[Modified by Subfixer, 3:12 PM 3/15/2004]

66427-450

the first thing that goes back there are the strut rod bushings.......... .i'd look there first :thumbs: