By Brad Bergholdt
McClatchy-Tribune
Q My son just purchased a 1995 Honda Civic that's been lowered — I think by two or three inches below the normal body height. He likes the way it looks, but he's tired of the way the car scrapes the ground going in and out of our driveway and certain speed bumps. How difficult is it to restore the car to original condition, or maybe halfway?
A Your son's Civic may have been lowered in one of three ways: The original springs may have been heated (a bad idea) or cut shorter (not the best way either) or the car has shorter and likely stiffer replacement springs.
This is the preferred method, as long as one is happy with the height and ride characteristics.
A 2-plus-inch drop, as he's found, can cause issues, whereas a 1.5-inch front/1-inch rear drop is a more reasonable choice.
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There are several ways to restore the vehicle body to the original height: renewing the springs, installing lifting blocks or adding spacers.
Inexpensive rubber hourglass-shaped lifting blocks can be wedged between the spring coils, spreading them apart,but this is a quick fix, and the blocks tend to deteriorate or fall out.
Circular rubber spacers placed at one end of the spring work pretty well but require the same amount of work as renewing the springs, and are better used to fine-tune ride height in 1 inch or less increments.
Renewing the four coil springs with original or moderately shorter replacements is really the best choice.
One can also choose "coil-over" springs, a short spring with an adjustable spacer cap at one end.
The Civic uses MacPherson struts front and rear, combining each spring and shock absorber into an assembled unit.
The complete struts are fairly easy to remove and reinstall from the vehicle body, but disassembling them to renew the spring is potentially dangerous unless a professional spring-compressing fixture is used.