Here are some posts I originally made to my Galaxie forum.  Figured I would post here to get some feedback.

On January 27th Daze wrote:

As some of you may know form previous posts, my Galaxie started out life with a big block 352.  It now has a small block with an entirely aluminum upper end.  This means the OEM big block springs, even though 52 years old, are way to stiff.  I tried to get replacement springs online but all the offerings are geared to the big block.  I don't mind a stiff front end but I don't like how high my front end is sitting.  I was not willing to cut my OEM springs because cutting them would make them stiffer.  The solution...I hope, is a set of coil over shocks with 350# spring and adjustable valving.  I should be able to make this fit and hopefully get the front end riding the way I want.  I ordered them today and will update when I get them.

On January 30th Daze wrote:

got the parts today and they look like they should fit with out issue, even to the point that I am surprised that this kit is not listed as fitting a Galaxie.  I guess I will see for sure when I go to install them.

 

On March 26th Daze wrote:

jrdufresne wrote:

Be sure to reinforce the the control arm mounts for that. Doesn't the lower portion of the spring sit against a spanner nut that is used to adjust the ride height?

Larry

You are absolutely correct.  All the spring pressure will be on the LCA shock mounts.  Things may change when I actually get the OEM springs out, but at this point I am planning on fatting a reenforcing ring and mounting the shock on top of the LCA.  I have the rear end torn apart now and when I get it put back together the front springs are next on my list.  Thanks for the ideas and concerns, I really appreciate it!!
 

On April 9th Daze wrote:

Daze wrote:

Hope to get to it next week which means I probably won't get to it tell the week after 

wiser words were never spoken.  FINALLY got to work on the front end today.  only got one side torn down, but in doing so I was able to figure out what I need to do to make it work and answer a lot of question.  

First of all the over all length of the new shock is about 2" shorter than the KYB performance shock I had installed.


Believe it or not, but this should be about perfect.  The KYB shock had to be compressed about 1" to install it.  The other 1" should be made up by mounting the bottom of the shock to a reinforcement plate attached to the top of the LCA rather than the bottom like Ford originally had it.

Second, the new QA1 shock has about 1" less stroke than the KYB due to an internal and external bumper each about 1/2" thick.  again not an issue because as i said before "The KYB shock had to be compressed about 1" to install it."  Plus now I have the advantage of built in bumpering in the shock.  I will get back at it tomorrow and see if I can get things mocked up.  More to come. I will keep you posted as I know more.


 

On April 10th Daze wrote:

This is going to work!!!  Short of something being weird when I get it all put pack together, this install should be a piece of cake.

Just to get an idea of what I was working with I bolted the shock directly to the OEM shock mount.  As was mentioned before this is not going to be strong enough to hold the full spring load.  Ford used a much larger area to hold the front weight of the car.




After the initial mockup I extended the coil over set up to max and compared it to the uncompressed OEM spring.  They are almost the same height.  This is just a rough comparison,  I am sure the springs will compress differently but it is good to know that things are similar. 


End to end the springs are almost the same The QA1 springs are slightly smaller (total diameter) but not enough to cause issues, as you will see in the pic after this one.


As mentioned above the springs are close enough in size to work,  the QA1 coil fits beautifully in the Galaxie spring pocket.


Now to some actual fabrication.  I wanted to reinforce the LCA and put the force of the suspension in the same place Ford designed it to go in.  To that end I needed something to fill the grove where the spring sat.  To achieve this I cut the flattened top off of an extra set of OEM galaxie springs I had (didn't want to use the actual springs from the car incase this project failed and I had to go back to stock.)  The result is a round piece of steel that fits nice in the OEM pocket AND gives me a flat place to weld two cross plates to. 


These cross plates were fabbed out of 1/4" by 2" bar stock.  I still need to drill them and do a little more fitting before I can weld them to the "spring" seat.  I also plan on using spacers between the 1/4" plate and the OEM mounting holes so that the 1/4" plate cant move.


When its all said and done the mount should look something like this.


The OEM holes will also need to be drilled out to 3/8"  This is a mod I'm not worried about if for some reason I needed to go back to the stock configuration I could easily weld a couple nuts to the top side of the LCA.

So what do you think??  Anything you would have done differently, or think I should change??