OOOPS

Question: Is there an air-adjust shock that I can use instead of replacing the spring mount?

Here's the story:

My father-in-law called to say that his 89 Dodge Dynasty wouldn't pass emissions, said he would give it to me (I don't have emissions checks here). He bought the car new, it worked perfectly, looked new, so I picked it up. I flew up and drove it 900 miles home, no problems.

I am driving it home the other night (I've had it for about 3 days) and it felt like I blew a tire. I was going through a neighborhood so I wasn't in any danger from a blow out, just pulled over.

Tires are fine, so I thought I broke a shock or worse yet a shock mount. I had an instant low rider. The car was riding all of the way down on the driver's rear side. Limped it home the last mile (took 20 minutes) and looked at it this morning.

Turns out that the plate that the rear spring rides on which is welded to the axle rusted away from the axle. The spring is long gone, who knows where by now.

My question is: Is there an air adjust shock (cheap) that I could use for this car instead of trying to drag an entire new axle out of a junk yard?

 

All you need is a welder and some 12 ga. sheet metal, and you'll have a new spring perch. Take a look at the opposite side, since it probably isn't far behind. Replacement springs can be had new or from a bone yard, and are pretty cheap either way. I've done several spring perches on the older 'K' bodies and Omni/Horizons that can't take more than a few winters of salt. One was so bad I had to fabricate and entire inner fender/spring tower to have something to weld to. The sad part was it was only five years old at the time and had about 80K miles.

Air shocks can help, but place the load on a part of the body that was never meant to carry that weight. Then again, it's just a Chrysler...

 

Vader,

Thank you again for your insight.

All I can say is that I have owned a Dodge once before and the only reason I own this one is because it was given to me. It's rather disheartening indeed.

I'll give the old welder a shot and see what I can do. The other perch is definitely ready to pop any day now also.

 

If you can keep a fresh timing belt in it and the Mitsubishi head doesn't warp too often, it might run for you for a while. I trust this was not an Arizona car, but was living in the salt belt for a few of its years. Remember that the springs are quite a bit smaller on the rear of these cars, but then you should have the remnants of the opposite side spring mount as a guide.

In realilty, since it's just a trailing arm axle, you should be able to drop both sides easily for fabrication and let it hang at the front of the arms. I think some of those POS even had air springs, but they were still mounted in the regular spring position. You should be able to weld a square plate from the trailing arm to the axle beam, then add another plate along the inner edge back to the beam as a gusset to limit twisting. As long as there is a relatively flat surface, it should work fine. I'm guessing whatever you do itt will be far superior to what the factory did, since not many of us are successful in welding Reynold's Wrap as structural elements like Chrysler could. Well, maybe Ede could pull it off, but not many others.

BTW - As long as you're under there, take a really close look at the upper mounts for the springs. Got any extra metal?

 

There's literally billions of those things in the junkyards, where they belong; you could just go get another axle and put a set of new springs in it, for less than $150 it would be usable again.

 

I know someone who has a MIG welder, so we're gonna get busy this weekend on the POS.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Did you realize that the factory shocks housing is plastic, thinner than a milk jug!

The cheapest aftermarket shock I could find is far superior in construction that the Chrysler piece of junk!

WOW

It's absolutely amazing isn't it?

The car has spent its life in Kansas City and Salt Lake City.

Funny thing is, my father in law is an engineer, knows his way around a garage, but still refuses to buy anything except for a Chrysler. Oh, he had a Blazer he purchased used once and an old beater Ford, but if it's new, he only buys Dodge.

 

Wow. After all the issues we have seen consistently arise on Mopars, he still refuses to shop elsewhere? He must really be price-driven, but as we know, you get what you pay for.

My father-in-law used to be the same way, primarily because we have other relatives that used to work for Chrysler, and he could get a discount. The last time he went car shopping for my mother-in-law, I convinced him to at least test drive a 2001 Impala LS (with the Buick 231). Two days later it was in his garage. For almost a year now, he has been saying "Why did I ever bother with those other 'things'. This car even feels better to drive."

Incidentally, he's had two Dynasties, a multitude of Omnis, LHS, and other Mopar POS vehicles. He's on his ninth Caravan/Town & Country, and says he's going to look hard at the Astro AWDs next time around. I guess now that he's retired, he's had time to actually think about it. Plus, he's driven my wife's 2000 Astro AWD once and I think has a clue now.

But, to each his own, I guess. At least those buying Chrysler vehicles are creating jobs for those who repair autos for a living.

BTW - Those plastic shock housings might just be the upper dust covers for the piston rods, but I'm not sure about that. Good luck on the fabrication. Let us know how much fun you're having.