1967 Strut Rods

[Kenny Hancock]

I'm in the process of rebuilding the rear suspension on my 67 L-79 coupe and discovered that the strut rods on the car have a 1 3/8" inner diameter instead of 1 1/4". The car is almost totally original so far, but I thought the 1 3/8" diameter strut rods were on 1975 and later models. Were the 1 3/8" rods used on any C2 models?

[Scott Marzahl]

Re: 1967 Strut Rods

I think yours were probably replaced by service units.

[Timothy B.]

Re: 1967 Strut Rods

Very very common I understand. Everyone should always meansure there actual struts before ordering new bushings or they might find they don't fit and have to return them. I can't imagine why I know this...:-)

[Joe L.]

Re: 1967 Strut Rods

Kenny------

I think that I can safely say that absolutely NO 1967 Corvettes were ever built with the 1-3/8" end strut rods. 1963-74 Corvettes used the 1-1/4" rods.

However, the 1-1/4" end rods were discontinued by GM in about 1979 and replaced, for SERVICE, by the 1975-79 PRODUCTION rods which had the 1-3/8" bore ends.

Many original strut rods were bent in a bogus effort to restore proper camber settings for the rear wheels (rather than replace the bushings which would have been the real fix). So, later, many of the rods were replaced. When replaced after the time of discontinuation of the original style rods, you got the later style rods. I'm sure that's what happened here.

My experience has been that the elastomer bushing in the later style rods holds up MUCH better than the elastomer held up in the original style rods. I don't know why this is since the thicker elastomer in the later style rods would seem like it would distort more easily and, effectively, lengthen the center-to-center dimension of the rods (producing excessive negative camber). But, it doesn't. The early style rods with the thin elastomer bushings are the ones that suffere most from this phenomenon (that's why many of the early rods were bent to restore the center-to-center dimension and proper camber adjustment).

However, as in other cases, you don't think that GM changed to the 1-3/8" end rods because the 1-1/4" end rods worked just as good, do you?

[Kenny Hancock]

Re: 1967 Strut Rods

Thanks for everyone's response, and Tim count me in the group that will need to return bushings because I didn't measure!