Thread: And more questions: Front suspension & clearance

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Here you go.


www.speedwaymotors.com/default.aspx


Their website is a little difficult to go through, but if you click on Street Rod Products and do a search you will find most of the stuff. When you order stuff they give you a free catalog. Great people to deal with.


Don

Originally Posted by techinspector1

Faith, in my opinion the first thing you should do is remove the Panhard bar and sling it as far as you can. It is the most awful mechanical abortion that was ever bolted to a car. This Panhard guy should have been suspended in mid-air with a strong cord around his privates until he came up with an acceptable design to limit lateral movement of the axle. That's as nice as I can be about that.

Mr. Techinspector, what's your problem? All this wrath, but no technical logic or explanation for your opinion! I'd like to know why you're so opposed to a Panhard bar! This kind of language doesn't belong here . . . and you're talking to a gal, too!

What is your preference . . . let the shackles swing? Dead perch? Watts linkage? Vertical slot with a roller? IFS?

You're entitled to your opinion, but why should anyone care about what you have to say?

Regarding your shock angle, SirSpeedy has it right. Your wide axle (nice!), combined with the Deuce Factory lower shock mounts, is giving you a lot of angle to the shocks. Don't go for the short shocks. They just don't have enough travel to give you a decent ride. The shorter lower shock mounts you're looking for are in stock at SAC Hot Rod, Orange CA (714-997-3433). Get the ride height you're happy with, and then change the upper shock mounts to put the shocks about in the center of their travel. This will allow the longer shocks to do their job more effectively.

You might want to stay with a "reversed eye" spring to keep the car nice and low. Most people prefer the reversed eye spring, and a new spring with pads between the leaves will ride much better, and will probably raise the car only a little bit, since your spring is getting tired.

[QUOTE=Hot Rod Roy]Mr. Techinspector, what's your problem? All this wrath, but no technical logic or explanation for your opinion! I'd like to know why you're so opposed to a Panhard bar! This kind of language doesn't belong here . . . and you're talking to a gal, too!

What is your preference . . . let the shackles swing? Dead perch? Watts linkage? Vertical slot with a roller? IFS?

You're entitled to your opinion, but why should anyone care about what you have to say?


Hot Rod Roy: I am not going to speak for Richard (Techinspector 1) He is certainly more than capable than doing that on his own. But I have to ask you your own question......."what's your problem?" For someone to come on here with only 9 posts, even if you did start them in April, and attack one of the nicest, most knowlegable members we have, with no provocation,that is out of line. I reread Richards post 3 times to find what set you off, and can't find one thing he said wrong. He was just giving his opinion, and his language did not contain one swear word. If you take offense at the word "privates" it is you with the problem, not he. I am always the first person to mention to someone on here that certain language is not acceptable, and Richard's was not offensive.

I suggest you learn to not come into something new with guns blasting in the future until you get the lay of the land. I also think you owe Richard an apology. He has always gone out of his way to help everyone possible, and has proven he knows his stuff from more than a bench racing perspective. He is also a very good friend to many of us on this forum, and I won't see him attacked in this manner without giving my two-cents. If you disagree with someone, there is a right and wrong way to do it. You chose the latter.

Oh, and I also agree with him on Panhard's. I have never used one, and find that if you set up your front suspension properly you don't need one. And, they are butt=ugly. Hope the word butt is ok?


Don

I don't like the look of a Panhard bar on an open-wheeled car either. A "dead perch" would do the same thing and look much better.
With conventional steering, it wouldn't matter which side the dead perch went on, but with cross steering it would probably be better on the driver's side.

Speedway will send you a catalog if you call, write or go through their site.

You'll have a choice as to whether it's the Street Rod catalog or the Race catalog.
Get both, the Race catalog has a lot of nifty parts that are very usable on our street driven hot rods.

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Faith: Also notice that even though he has a reversed eye spring like yours, that his spring has a lot more arch to it than yours. I think your spring is either flattening out, or someone did that to lower it more.
Don

While there may be some sag in the spring due to age, I'd guess there are two leaves taken out also since there are two spacers in the stack.

I am not an expert here but I can offer two comments.

1. It is worth a try to just move the two metal spacer pads to the top of the spring and see if that is enough to improve the situation. That would not require removing the spring.

2. Beware of any step that requires removing the spring shackels on either end. I do not know if you are going to do this yourself or have a shop do it BUT ( ! ) I have changed springs a few times and when you remove the tension on the spring there can be a helluva "kick" capable of breaking an arm easily! The way I have done this is to be very careful and use a large C clamp on the spring that can be gradually loosened after the shackel is removed from one end.

When I put my dropped axle together I got it all together and then realized I had forgotten to put the grease fittings into the king pins and the only way to add them was to take it apart again! During that process I had an "opportunity" to see the spring kick. The large 10" C-clamp I bought was the largest I could find but was still near it's limit and it slipped off just while I was messing with the spring and "WHAMMO"! Fortunately my hands were clear but it was a close call. If this is done in a shop they should have a way to clamp the spring while the shackels are loosened so I recommend you talk this over with a friendly shop person who has the right tools.

Overall, just moving the spacers to the top of the spring might do the trick and not lose the good stance you have now. You might even try moving just one spacer to the top and leaving the lower one where it is, a 1/4" of added clearance for the crank pulley might be enough. Still you have to ask the question as to whether you want the ride of a coil spring barge like a stock 1952 Buick with the attendant cornering lean or a firmer handling roadster and maybe one other possibility is a softer seat cushion? Note also that as you raise the height of the body relative to the axle, the shock angle will improve slightly so maybe you should try moving both spacer pads to the top for that reason. I favor small incremental improvements rather than total system changes if it is possible and right now you have something which runs so I would just get a shop to move those spacers to the top and try it for a while to see how it rides. As Bob says, the spacers may be compensating for missing spring leaves but adding those leaves back would only make the ride more firm rather than softer. Replacing the spring entirely with a Super-slide with teflon buttons could help if you get a shop to do the work but I would favor keeping the reversed eyes on the first leaf and maybe the total number of leaves would make up for the present spacers. Conclusion: simple change, move the spacers up OR get a Super-slide spring but be careful and let the shop do the replacement!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

In case anyone wants to know the safest way to take a leaf spring apart, here is how I do it:

After the spring is free from the center perch, put two large C clamps on either side of the center bolt and clamp down tightly and make sure they are on straight.

When you are sure they are capable of holding the spring, gently remove the center bolt and replace it with a similar bolt of good grade quaility, except you want this bolt to be about 8 inches long, and have threads for all but maybe 2 inches of the bolt. Put a washer under the head of the bolt and under the nut, to act as a bearing surface while you are loosening and tightening the bolt.

Tighten the bolt down until it is holding the leaves like the original bolt did.

Now, the idea is to use the center bolt to slowly release the tension on the leaves, but I do it in conjunction with loosening the two clamps at the same time. I loosen a little on the two clamps, then loosen the center bolt. Then I keep repeating this process until the leaves are totally loose and exhibit no tension. At this point you can remove the clamps and the center bolt and take all the leaves off of the main leaf.

Once those are gone, the main leaf is easy to remove from the spring shackles, as there is no tension to it at all.

Putting the spring back together is the reverse of this process. With the long center bolt and the two C clamps, you have a better chance of not having the C clamps slip sideways and kiss you in the face.

I have used ALL-THREAD in place of the center bolt too, but you have to go as big as possible, and make sure it is a good quality so it won't break under the load of tightening it up. If you do a couple of turns on the bolt and a couple on the clamps in sequence, you minimize the strain on any of the tools you are using to remove the leaves.

Once you go about 4 inches or so, the spring becomes harmless.

Hope this will help someone out.

Don

The use of TWO clamps is good and the idea of a longer center bolt is also good, BUT in my case I had to flatten the spring to get the shackel bolts through the holes so while both shackels are in the eye-ends my spring was still under tension! I did this by putting a block of wood under one of the eye-ends with the other end bolted together and then clamping down in the center till the spring was flat enough to add/remove the shackel bolt because the spring needs to be flatter to make it longer and take the tension off the shackels. That could be done more safely, I admit, using the long center bolt idea and if you remove the original center bolt I guess the leaves could separate, I did not try that. You might have to take extra care to put the teflon buttons back on a Super-slide if you take the leaves apart. As long as the leaves are bolted together, the arch will have to be flattened to get the shackel bolts out. Hey, I usually have to do things "my way" pretty much as learned from my Dad, and eventually I may do something wrong and get hurt but so far I guess I have either been right or lucky!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Hiboygal, Thanks for your excellent pictures, you are helping me too! I don't have the radiator on my '29 yet so here is a picture of a Brookville replica of a Model A frame with cross steer which is of course not exactly the same as a '32. However even with a 5" dropped axle and a Super-slide I have at least 2" of clearance between the bottom of my harmonic damper-crank-pully and the tie rod. For Tech1, the picture shows that the Panhard bar which is the frontmost of the three bars is clearly out of the way on this setup. What this means to me is that the '32 owned by HiBoyGal is REALLY LOOOOOOW! The good news for HiBoyGal is that she can raise the body relative to the spring maybe at least 1" to get a better shock angle and more clearance for her crank pully and so maybe if the U-bolts are long enough she could use a thicker spacer on top. It looks to me on her pictures that the threads on the U-bolt will indeed allow a thicker spacer on top of the spring so maybe a new spacer 3/4" thick would be the easy way to improve her situation and still have a very low front end. Can anyone do me a favor and tell me if I have the wrong crank damper for a '76 350 SBC? I think it is the one I took to the engine shop but I am not sure and it looks large to me.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Looks like the 8" damper Don, the other stock size was 6 3/4" They could use ither either damper on the 350's just that the 8" was heavy duty used on sports cars or trucks.

Thanks Southerner (Enzo), that makes sense since the engine came out of a Corvette.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I'm not real familiar with the SBC, but don't you have to be careful in swapping harmonic dampeners due to differing balance/balance weight situations as well as the timing marks can be a mismatch to the timing pointer?

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RE: Front spring disassembly and assembly.

I'll just add that I like to use the appropriate size Phillips screwdriver to align leaf spring holes when assembling the spring.

It helps to have a couple of spring center bolts on hand.
They don't cost much, a little over a buck each last time I bought some.

Once the spring is clamped, slide the Phillips head screwdrive out and most times the spring center bolt slides right in.
In any event, don't pound the center bolt in with a hammer, you'll just screw up the threads.

If you have the spring off the axle and disassembled, it's easy to put the main leaf on by itself, shackles connected etc. and then assemble the leafs to the main spring.

I've made changes to spring packs simply by removing the four nuts to the spring crossmember clamp, unbolting one end of the shocks and then letting the axle/spring combo down with a jack.
Of course, the car is up on sturdy jackstands prior to starting.

Be careful you don't drop the axle down so far the hydraulic brake lines get damaged.

Once changes are complete and the spring is back together it's easy to slip the spring back into the crossmember.
None of the 4 bar, split bones or radius rod adjustments have to be disturbed.

C9X, that is why I'm asking about the dampener but from what Southerner says it makes sense that the large 8" diameter would be on a Corvette engine and I recall now that the engine builder sent me out for a timing mark kit and he told me to make sure it was for the large dampener. I let him set up the short block so I can only hope that he was aware of the match. As far as the spring assembly goes, I would do quite a few things differently the "next time" and I see now that the main leaf might have gone in easier by itself but I did not want to mess up all the slide buttons at the time. I am assuming that HiboyGal will get help from a shop when she makes a decision on what to do. Actually her list of things to do seems pretty good. Her questions helped me check out some things on my front end.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder