Installing higher grade shocks and leaving the wore out rubber in the suspension, and leaving the rubber mounts in the K member and the rubber around the leaf spring mounts just doesn't make much sense to me, but its not my money your spending.
I have no intention of leaving in garbage-grade rubber. But I also need to keep the car from bottoming out on the road from my house into town. This car is driven...like "any day it ain't raining daily" driven. It's a Cordoba with sporting aspirations, not a Hemi Coronet.
Shocks are intended to reduce or eliminate bounce from the suspension, they are not intended to raise the vehicle (unless they are air shocks). If your car is bottoming out, jack up the front end, and use the adjusting screw to put more tension on the torsion bars. If the car sits too high for your taste after the adjustment, larger diameter torsion bars are in your future.
I have owned a lot of that era Mopar cars back in the day. Suspension bottoming out was just a torsion bar adjustment, that was why the bars were adjustable. Two full rounds ( got to start some where may need more, or less) on each of the adjusting bolts will make a huge difference on ride quality, and only takes a few minutes of time and no money. Don't judge the ride height until after you have driven the car, it will settle down after being driven a few miles.
If its still bottoms out after adjusting the torsion bars, you really need to look at the rear springs and the spring hangers. Here in the rust belt, I've replaced many rear spring shackle frame mounting points. They had a bad habit of sleazing the bushing, and start twisting the steel sleeve in the frame mount until it started ripping out. Gene
