Alpine Clan, This message is a reply to Jay Laifman RE: Rubber insulators on SV springs. By the way eliminating the rubber will make your car feel and hear every imperfection in the road.
I just rebuilt the front suspension on my 62 alpine, and found rubber insulators on them as well. The thickness of the rubber was about .6 inches. I recently went through an excersise on fitting my alpine with stiffer springs. I calculated the spring rate on my original springs "using
factory literature" to be 250 lbs/inch. I found some springs that are the proper dimension with 350 lbs/inch. This lowered the car by about 1 inch over stock. The spring rate is pretty stiff and probably not acceptable for
a daily driver. Also the shocks are no longer damped properly and I will have to fit adjustable "higher" damping rate shocks for bounce free driving.
Although there are significant differences in front suspension between our cars "SII vs. SV" the later suspension "SIV,SV"has its pivotal point closer in than that of the early cars and consequently have slightly longer springs of slightly higher rate. Using the spring that I have in my car would give more than a 2 inch drop on your car with a less radical spring rate. If you
or anyone else are interested, these are aftermarket Pantera front springs and are 9.9 inches uncompressed "compared with 12.5 inches for SIV". Laden
length is about 7 inches at 950 lbs load.