The rear end seems to be sitting really high. During the resto, I replaced everything in the rear suspension, shocks and springs. It's been on jacks for two years and I finally took it off last week. Will it settle down? The leaf springs are 5 leaf and the shocks are KYB Gas Adjust.

I would guess no.

Did you try loosening the bolts to the bushings while it was on the ground?

Yup, looks like things were tightened up with no weight on the suspension.

Agreed. Start by loosening the bolts at the spring ends.

If that does not work, then something is the wrong part. Did you have any trouble getting the springs or shocks bolted up (a bit too long)?

You don't have a full load on your springs yet. I can see you have not installed rear glass. Are seats in, door panels, engine ... etc?

Leave all bolts loose when attaching rear axle to springs and spring ends to rear shackles etc. Don't tighen up bolts until the car is resting on the rear axle with a full load.

It was all tightened while on the jack stands. I'll start loosing things up and see what happens. It has everything installed but the windshield, now. I put the back glass in Sunday and just picked up the windshield $118, today. The vinyl top went on yesterday. Fair job, has some wrinkles that I hope work out when the sun hits it.

Thanks for the feedback, it's incredible to get help like this!

Another thing to check since you tightened up the bolts while on jack stands are the rear leaf shackles.
Looking at the car from the side, the shackles must be angled to the rear of the car. If they are pointing straight down or forward they will not operate properly and would keep the car sitting high in the rear.

Also, since bolts were tightened while on jack stands; after loosening the bolts to let it settle you will probably have to jounce it on each corner a bit to make sure it settles to where it should be. Did you also tighten the front end suspension while on jack stands? If you did - you will need to do the same up front.

She is looking good, more pics please!
Cal

Put bigger wheels on the back!

Kidding aside, did you get new leafs stock height or with maybe a 1-2" lift?

Nice looking bird

Actually ,he needs bigger wheels up front....LOL

Front end looks way high, also.

Who did you get the springs from - I'm wondering if they sold you the wrong springs? Some vendors sell nova/ventura parts and pass them off as camaro/firebird parts or Gen II. Even if they're the same length and width, the spring rate or arc may be different.

I recently R&R'd my sagging springs with 4-leaf [80-335] springs purchased from General Spring in Kansas. The new springs got me back up to stock height.

I'm chiming in late here; hopefully you've already got it figured out.

This is a real long shot (save it for last), but my bird sat just a bit lopsided when I got it, about a 1" difference from one side to the other, and only in the rear. So one side looked fine from the side, but the other had too much clearance above the rear tire.

It took me forever to figure out that the leaf spring bracket on the driver side was the wrong part. Had almost the exact same shape, but the bolt for the spring was an inch higher/lower (forget which) than what it should have been. Not sure, but I think it came off of a Nova (?). Once the correct part was installed, all was well.