So what we've arrived at is that hanging suspensions weighs more than the auto itself.............. I don't think elevating your vehicle makes much difference in the long run, after all ,there's more weight on everything when the vehicle is on all fours, so the weight of the suspension is minimal, what it might reduce is the set that a suspension takes when it sits loaded for a long period and it is usually the tires that are the culprit..........just my .02 Now, dropping the suspension at speed is a different story..............
It has nothing to do with the weight of the suspension. It has to do with how the rubber bushings are designed and operate, which most folks don't understand.
The O.D. of the bushing is bonded to the outer shell, which is locked solid in the holes in the control arms (and the rear trailing arm); the I.D. of the bushing is bonded to the center tubular sleeve, which is locked solid in place by the serrations on the end of the sleeve when the through-bolt is torqued. All up and down motion of the control arms (and trailing arms) is absorbed by the RUBBER portion of the bushing - the outer shell doesn't move relative to the control arm, the rubber doesn't move relative to the outer shell, and the inner sleeve doesn't move relative to either the control arm or the rubber. NOTHING moves - only the rubber in the bushings is distorted torsionally when the suspension moves up and down.
That's why the through-bolts must be torqued with the car at normal design height, on its wheels, so the rubber in the bushings isn't stressed - so the rubber is "neutral" in terms of stress unless the suspension is moving up and down.
If you put the car up on jackstands and let the suspension hang at full rebound, limited only by full extension of the shocks (where it's driven by the springs), that puts the rubber in the bushings WAY beyond their normal torsion limits (twist), and they'll fail prematurely due to being overstressed for long periods of time.
Doesn't matter on C1's, as all their bushings are metal-to-metal (no rubber), but everything from '63-up has rubber bushings. BAD idea to put the car "up in the air".
And, don't start it and run it unless you drive it at least ten miles to get the oil in the pan hot enough to boil off all the condensation and rich-mixture cold-start blow-by contaminants you add every time you start it and cold/hot/cold-cycle it; if you just start it and run it without driving it, it just makes the oil more acidic each time, which creates sludge. The seals won't "dry out" - that's another old wives' tale.
