leaning van

. My 66 handi van has a slight lean to it. Lower on the pass side an inch or so. Looks like maybe right rear is lower. I've read here in earlier post that I am not the only one with the lean. Anybody know why? Is there a fix for it? The PO put new front springs in it, but did nothing to the rear.

put the rear of the frame up on same height jack stands and see how it looks. Quite often a weak back spring will transfer the weight wrong. These vans are a lot stiffer body wise than most think. I am thinking that most 66's had the larger passenger side spring bushing also? A little wear there might show up more. Even my 65 with new springs all the way around may lean a wee bit. keep in mind the drive train is 2 inches or so right of center.

when accelerating in a vehicle that is rear wheel drive,
the torque for the engine applied to the rear axle will
cause the right rear spring to compress and make the
left one decompress, just the nature of the beast

Thanks for the input. Its not to bad not going to worry about it that much. Will probably level out when I put my fat butt in the drivers seat.

mine does the same because of the dumb asss who rearked the front springs.

m1D

Mine is the same way, about an inch lower on the pass side...and as mentioned, the constant 'twisting' of that side during 50 years of driving has probably weakened and compressed that side's rear spring. My front looks even though.....

M1.....do you think there is a chance that switching the front springs side to side will make things better because maybe they did not cook the springs right or the RF was and still is sagging?

I am having the same issue with mine also.!!!...I had the front springs reached 2 inches a little over a year ago witch levelled the front out and its sagging on the right front again.. So I have been researching and a 1976-86 Jeep cj5 has 2 inch wide front springs so I called "Sky Jacker" and they have a 2 inch add a leaf kit for the front its $62.97 plus shipping available at "Summit Racing" so I will know if it will work in a couple of weeks and hopefully it will level the front out again.!!!.. 

when I had my front springs re-arked they took 3 weeks to do it and when I went to pick them up finaly I could see they where not the same. One was arked way more than the other. I had to get my spring back and in so I just installed them. i have removed that short lower leaf from the tall one to help level it out and I put the tall one on the driver side since I usually drive alone.
I will get them corrected some day when I find another spring shop.

m1d

Mine seemed to sag pass front so I took the small leaf out of the driver side rear and now it sits level. Bill

Wanted to lower my van a touch. It sat way to high. The po said he wanted to install a v-8 so he put heavier leafs in front. So i took 3 leafs out of the front, 3 out of the rear(2 long ones and one little short one) and put a  small, short one back in the pass rear. sits level now. rides nice also. Also scored some  wheels and tires from craiges list.

Looks nice oldgoalie and those wheels are killer!!! Score!!!

my passenger side is about an inch and a half lower than the other side. I never paid too much attention to it until I looked at the difference in gap between the top of my tires and the wheel arches. I also measured down from the rain gutters to make sure the wheel openings weren't off. gonna take it to the local spring shop. they have done a lot of my vehicles and do a great job.

I think alot of our vans have mix and match springs. My front shackles are bent a little to the side from inproper jacking--my bad. I have air shocks in the back and with just a tiny bit of pressure they somehow make everything close to level. I doubt our vans, being the high performance vehicles they are ;-) care much about being level. 50 years is a long time to fight gravity and torque. Good luck.

The engine/trans are offset to the right, so I'll bet the left and right scale different and should be sprung accordingly....

I've been fighting gravity for over 50 years, I sag a little on one side too