The only proper way to lower a car is to use the proper pieces: lowering springs, spindles, etc. But for every car you’ll see done right, I’ll find you ten that have been done in a less-than-proper way. You’ve seen it: coil clamps, one leaf spring doing the job of five, heated springs…people will do anything to avoid having to rip into the suspension. But this one takes the cake: using hose clamps in place of coil clamps. Courtesy of our friends over at the Mechanic Memes Facebook page, this has to be one of the most ill-advised attempts at lowering a car I’ve ever seen. Yes, I know Freiburger got hose clamps to hold down a transmission in a Dart, but that transmission isn’t moving compared to what the coil on this strut does as the car goes down the road. This is asking way too much out of $1.00 hose clamps.
This is new…Vice Grips can hold onto anything, this is pretty much true, but holding onto an engine that needs a new mount? This is desperation at it’s finest. Just spring for a new mount already. Especially since it looks like the Vice Grips have been dragging the handle around, and the rest of it says that you’ve had this “fix” on your car for at least half of the year now.
I work in a suspension shop and it is hilarious the way people modify their vehicles and then they come to us complaining that the ride quality is all screwed up.
Holy hell! I thought my redneck fixes were bad. This makes me look like a dag on OSHA inspector.
It’s obvious he ran out of money after buying those fancy new wheels and tires. Not a spec of dirt on those. Priorities !!
While stationed in Camp Pendleton (1991ish), one of my co-workers didn’t like the ride quality of his then new Hyundai. He would take the car to the tire store and complain that the tires were bad. They’d check for abnormal wear patterns, defects, set the pressure to the manufacturers recommended pressure, and send him on his way. He didn’t like the “squishy” feel so he’d pump them up to “about 80psi” where they were “nice and firm”. I watched him do this repeatedly all the while praying that the tires didn’t explode while I was anywhere near the car.
Had a guy come in for a new set of lowering springs, the ones on his car were just too stiff. As soon as it was on the lift and the suspension was unloaded, the rear springs fell out. They had been completely collapsed by a torch.
I pulled a 429 out of a 71 Mustang once. They were available in this car but this particular did not have the correct motor mounts. The small block and big block mounts use a bolt parallel to the crank to hold the rubber mount to the bracket on the chassis. But the chassis brackets are different so the bolts didn’t line up on this car. The installer rigged up something like rear leaf spring shackles to tie the rubber mount to the chassis bracket. But he didn’t use metal. He used 1/4″ plexiglass!
I’m questioning the vice grips. Looks like they are just clamped in place to hold the nut while the bolt was being backed out. No way they are holding any form of that mount together.
They’re “Vise” grips, not “Vice”.