57 210 4dr wagon ride question

Check the upper mounting points for the shockers, members now place a solid bar as the mounts have been known to crack, if yours are fine you can leave them alone, as far as ride goes the shocks with the rear springs should give you a comfortable ride, I have a sports sedan and it floats over bumps.

Thank you very nuch for this info!

Wagons came from the factory with five leaf rear springs. If your wagon still has them you might consider four leaf springs like on a regular passenger car.

Tires and shocks also make a big difference, but we are talking about 50’s technology.

Air shocks at high pressure will be stiff and give a ruff ride. You might try lowering the pressure and see if it makes a difference.

My old wagon is a bit ruff around town but on the open road the faster I go the smoother and quieter it gets.

I have a 55 wagon and the suspension is pretty much all new. Deviations from stock that would affect the ride are limited to a big front sway bar and bilstein shocks. I would say the ride is compliant bordering on soft even with these mods.
I’ve got limited experience with air shocks but I’d be looking at them first , lowering air pressure may help. If not check the shock absorbers general condition both front and rear.
If my wagons anything to go by the ride shouldn’t be rough.

Your air shock, when inflated put extra pressure on the sheet metal that is your upper shock mount. Both my wagons have broken the sheet metal out, one on one and both on the other, and this was with stock shocks, no air shocks. Do yourself a favor and loose the air shocks. Your leaf springs may be worn where the slide pads are. The plastic pads allow the leaves to slide on each other and are more responsive to bumps. You can buy new slider pads and disassemble your springs and install new pads, an easy job.

I agree with losing the air shocks. My '56 wagon had air shocks when I bought it and the shock mounts were all busted, so effectively, there were no shock-absorbing taking place. After I reconstructed the shock mounts and installed regular shocks, the car rode much nicer.

The original purpose of air shocks was to re-level the car (typically a station wagon) while you were carrying a heavy load, and then bleed it back down when you were finished.

In practice, they were used to jack up the rear of the car so you could put oversized tires on the rear, or for compensating for worn out rear springs.

As previously mentioned - ditch the air shocks and get some good quality regular shocks.

My original rear wagon springs were tired and I used air shocks to lift the rear. I had to put the rear shock bar in because my floor sheet metal for the shock mounts were already cracked. My car rode very stiff and rough. During my frame off restore, I put new rear 5 leaf springs on with Monroe gas shocks and it rides superbly comfortable.