lowering a car

[jdean]

need help on how to lower a car , what to do with the rear axle etc , thanks

[Snake45]

Might help if you'd tell us what model, how much you want to lower it, and so forth.

[Ace-Garageguy]

An interesting thing about model cars is that the lowering process is identical in concept to doing it on a real vehicle.

As Snake says, we need to know what kind of car you want to lower, and how much, etc. Then we can give you detailed info for doing it right.

One general truth, though, is that you can lower just about every FRONT end pretty much correctly if you:

1) block up the model at the stock ride height, using the kit wheels to get a good approximation

2) measure how much clearance you have between the lowest part of the car and the work surface

3) block up the car at the height you want it to be AFTER it's lowered

4) measure the clearance with the work surface in the lowered position

5) determine the difference between the two measurements

6) cut the stub axles off of the spindles and move them UP (drill, reglue, etc.) the exact distance you got in step 5.

[Miatatom]

Here's a few good answers:

http://modeltech.tripod.com/lower1.htm

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17254

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=56427

http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=20174

[jbwelda]

the thing about lowering is that a lot of it has to do with whether you care the underside looks realistic or not. if not, proceed as Bill indicated above. but if you want it to look realistic you often have to do some more extensive re-engineering. if its just a plain straight rear axle on leaf springs, you can sometimes cut off the mounting blocks on each end and thereby put the axle closer to the chassis, or sometimes you can dispense with the springs back there altogether (again though not very realistic looking but if no one is looking at the chassis no one will notice). IRS setups are harder but sometimes you can swap the axle pieces left to right and get more offset to lower the wheels like that. or what I often do: trim off the back of the brake disk or drum or whatever and then slide the wheel upward on the axle and glue it there with epoxy, blocking up the vehicle to its ride height with something while it dries. that's kind of the equivalent of what Bill suggests above but I think it retains a bit more realistic look like that.

in short theres lots of ways to do it, the trick is figuring out which way works best for what you got to work with.

jb

[Ace-Garageguy]

My suggestion for the FRONT of any car is the functional equivalent of putting "dropped spindles" on a real one. A 2" dropped spindle on a real car simply relocates the stub axle UPWARDS on the spindle by 2".

Raising the stub axle (and brakes, obviously) relative to the spindle on a model by the amount you want to lower the car strikes me as being pretty realistic.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Ace-Garageguy

[booboo60]

Got any pics? May help us, help you..

[Mike Kucaba]

That first link illustrates Bill E's text perfectly.

[jbwelda]

most models I build do not have simple stub axles that can be moved up and down at will. hence it gets more complicated to keep it realistic looking.

jb

[Ace-Garageguy]

most models I build do not have simple stub axles that can be moved up and down at will. hence it gets more complicated to keep it realistic looking.

jb

You're right. I shoulda said "any car with independent front suspension". A solid or beam axle won't work the way I described...not at all. My bad.