New here, and new to me Fairlane Club Sedan.

[jthesby]

Thanks for letting me in! Just bought this Fairlane last week, California car,  302, auto, runs great thus far. Interior while not stock is really nice, and tastefully done.
The body/paint leaves a bit to be desired, has rust holes in rockers, bondo slathered on the roof that I'm praying isn't hiding too much rust also.... throughout the paint you can see where someone used a palm sander and dug in a little deep so you see little swirl marks.  It looks great from about 20 foot.
The suspension is tired, front was lowered by heating the springs, and it's missing the front stabilizer bar,  the rear has 3" blocks, and with more than 2 people looks like it's scrubbing the inside of the driver side tire.
Already have aerostar springs and new stabilizer bar sit ting in the garage to install,  plan on going through the rest of the front end suspension and steering. Was eyeing the rear spring kit that Jamco makes for the rear(any input here?)

I'm sure that I'll have plenty of questions on the future, as this is my first Fairlane,  and particularity '57. I'll spend time doing to looking around first,  before asking.

Also have a couple other things like none working speedo and fuel gauge to fix.

Anyways,  on to the pictures,  here's Nadine, for all of faults she does photograph well.

[BWhitmore]

Nice car.  Nice California black plate.  Is the plate number commercial or what? 

[jthesby]

Nice car.  Nice California black plate.  Is the plate number commercial or what?

Those are actually new issue "Legacy" plates. Found out yesterday at the DMV that they were supposed to be kept by the seller...  they charge an additional  $40 a year for them, the kicker is you can get them for any car,  so you see Prius' running around with them...

I will be looking for a set of the correct yellow/black plates for her.

[BWhitmore]

I thought maybe that was the case.  I have seen a lot of new cars with these plates.  For the correct plate for a 1957 in California you actually need the 1956 plate (yellow with black letters) and a 1957 sticker (I have seen a lot of 1957 repro and original stickers on Ebay).  You will also need the small sticker holder for the current year sticker. 

[jthesby]

I thought maybe that was the case.  I have seen a lot of new cars with these plates.  For the correct plate for a 1957 in California you actually need the 1956 plate (yellow with black letters) and a 1957 sticker (I have seen a lot of 1957 repro and original stickers on Ebay).  You will also need the small sticker holder for the current year sticker.

Yeah,  I acruelly have an ok set of clear '56 plates w/o sticker,  but am hoping to find a nice set.  Possibly trade the ones I have and/or a couple of my '63 black/yellow clear sets, or even a clear set of '47 plates...  none of them are perfect....

[junior58]

Welcome to the group, nice looking car, love the microphone shift knob, was wanting to run one of those on a hotrod roadster project if I can find one here in NZ (I love music as well as hot rodding).

[Lucky'57]

Nice unit. Just a personal tip on the Aerostar springs, buy yourself a set of 1" spacers, will save yourself a lot of grief (bump stop grief). Welcome to the club, these guys are amazing, haven't run across one issue, ever, that couldn't be resolved here. Good luck with your car, enjoy, and drive it every chance you get.

[lalessi1]

Nice car and welcome to the forum! Ditto on the spacers, I just ordered 3/4" spacers for my Aerostar springs.....

[jthesby]

Spacers,  really?! Here I was afraid it they weren't going to get me low enough,  and I might have to cut them. Now to hear they may be too low?  My only experience with the Aerostar springs thus far as with a '49 Club Coupe, and I'm tempted to cut those.  I'm very surprised to hear that I may want/need spacers.... is it going to be lower than it currently is with these heated springs? Figured they'd be a huge improvement over them.

[RICH MUISE]

Don't know for sure, but I'd hazard a guess the "longer and lower" themes the cars of the mid 50's had put the oem '57 lower to the ground than the oem '49 to begin with. They should be a vast improvement over the the springs in your car now, but the "spacers" (thick isolators actually), as the guys mentioned, have given a better ride height from a daily driver usage standpoint...getting over speedbumps, up driveways, potholes, etc. The ones I got were Mr Gasket 1" that I picked up at a local off road store.
If your preference is the looks of a slammed car over driveability, you won't need them.

[lalessi1]

My car has about 1/2"  bumpstop clearance. The swaybar has 5" ground clearance. New Moog Aerostar springs, Concours/Southwest swaybar, stock spindles.  From fender lip to the center of the front wheel is about 12". A 1" spacer should raise the car a little over 2".

[Lucky'57]

You should be OK without the spacers, gonna look cool and low. Only problem I had with mine, when I put them in without spacers is, and you probably know this, these cars pick up a lot of chicks, sure, they're in the 50/60 range but what the heck so are we. Hang on I'm digressing. These "chicks" have girlfriends, normally a little heavier than your average bird. I'm just saying, an extra 1" doesn't seem like much (unless it's on the end of your dick, LOL), but it don't take much for that car to bottom out. Just you and Momma, no problems, anyone else... Get spacers.

[jthesby]

I'm picking up what your putting down there Lucky'57. Right now the drive shaft all ready rubs the tunnel, that's wit the old wore out leafs, and 3" blocks the PO had installed. It's rather evident that he originally didn't replace the shocks with a shorter unit in the rear. As both mounts on the leafs had to be welded back on  I currently have 1" blocks on the way for the rear to get it back up till I decide to cut the tunnel.
I'm actually hoping to gain a little height from where it is with the aerostars, ya'll just about have me convinced that it ain't happening....

On another note,  really got a chance to poke around under the car, looks like it was originally a power steering car(ram is still in place), missing pump, control valve and lines.
Now do I go thru and convert everything to manual,  or try and get the power steering going again?  Either way I am going to have to replace everything, it's wore to ****.