when i did my springs, i took those rubber inserts out, because they were all dry rotted etc... will that have any kind of effect on handling and ride quality?

It will make your car sit a little bit lower and will cause more road noise to be transfered to the car. Ride quality will go down as well.

Well you'll be hearing squeking. metal on metal is no good. Also your car will be lowered a tad now and your alignment may be off also.

ok, can i find some new ones somewhere, what are they called?

spring isolators

ok the part numbers i found are
Front 14047915
Rear 10290379

i need 4 for the front i know, what about the back, if i remember the ends of the springs are different sizes, do i just need two for the rear?

yes, just 2 for the rear, the bottom of the spring, sits directly on the pearch on the rear-end. so you only need the isolator for the top.

Can these isolators be bought at a parts store? I would like to replace mine as well.

Trent, you're wrong here man. The isolators ONLY go on the top of the spring, the bottom just sits in the spring bucket (front) and rides on the rearend (rear).

I replaced my isolators with new ones from GM when I rebuilt my suspension, but I ended up going back to the old ones on the rear. They (GM) only have one part number for the rears and I swear they're for 4th gens. They made my Iroc sit too high in the back. The "old" ones are partly steel anyway so they don't do much.

Benny and others, get the isolators from GM, the fronts are only $5 each, the new rears I bought run $11 each. You can buy mine if you want them.

HTH...

Ed

really, i could have swore when i did my springs they were on top and bottom

I only had them on the top of my car. I would think your front end would sit way high if you have them on both sides.

The springs need to be indexed right in the buckets of the A-arms and I don't see how this could be done if you had an isolator down there. I have pics of indexing and my coils and A-arms on my pages...click the link.

Ed