Thread: Everybody that is currently building a car...

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Originally posted by lt1s10
it will work fine prove riverhoese wrong

..................and if doesn't work, talk to lt1s10 .................HEHEHE

Originally posted by pro70z28
..................and if doesn't work, talk to lt1s10 .................HEHEHE

ill go up there and make it work

I like that attitude lt1s10, never surrender!!
I have most of the engine compartment done, recieved some company and had to call it a day, so the underneath is next and then the lowering. So you have a couple of days off!

I also had a bodyman friend of mine come out and look at my '48 and it looks like I may be getting off the hook having to do the painting!!! Halayluya! Thats a great load removed from my shoulders, work will start as soon as the truck gets out of the way.

That is a very cool way to make everything strong Pro70, and very clean looking too. I suppose alot of special things go into that tube frame huh? Very cool man.

Originally posted by brickman
I like that attitude lt1s10, never surrender!!
I have most of the engine compartment done, recieved some company and had to call it a day, so the underneath is next and then the lowering. So you have a couple of days off!

I also had a bodyman friend of mine come out and look at my '48 and it looks like I may be getting off the hook having to do the painting!!! Halayluya! Thats a great load removed from my shoulders, work will start as soon as the truck gets out of the way.

That is a very cool way to make everything strong Pro70, and very clean looking too. I suppose alot of special things go into that tube frame huh? Very cool man.

"never surrender" thats my motto. sure do get me in a lot of trouble though.

Originally posted by brickman


That is a very cool way to make everything strong Pro70, and very clean looking too. I suppose alot of special things go into that tube frame huh? Very cool man.

Got the funny car cage all tacked together. Got the diagonal braces tacked in, floor "X" brace and ''outer'' forward cross member braces tacked in.

Oh ........... and the lower dash bar too. That's about it for this week

What a maze Pro70!! You should be safe inside that cage. That baby is going to be a rush to drive when it's done!

Originally posted by pro70z28
Got the funny car cage all tacked together. Got the diagonal braces tacked in, floor "X" brace and ''outer'' forward cross member braces tacked in.

Oh ........... and the lower dash bar too. That's about it for this week

you gonna need a "pipe map" to get in and out. you could get lost in that thing.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by lt1s10 B]it will work fine prove riverhoese wrong


Well Mike, I'm just a simple guy that knows a little about a lot of things, And not a lot about anything. I have been proven wrong many times before and that doesn't bother me. At least I can say
learned something from the experience and Im not afraid to say, I'm sorry, I was wrong. We do have some scientist and engineers here that may be able to teach us something about temper of the steel. I do not believe You can heat those springs enough to make them colapse with out effecting the temper, therefore you will be adversely affecting the ride. When I cut off a rung of a spring with a cutoff wheel I am not effecting the temper of the steel. Because I have reduced the overall lenght of the spring, I am making it a little stiffer.I am not smart enough to compute exactly how much stiffer but I think I can get real close.

SO, Here is Your challenge. PROVE ME WRONG. Either way, We'll all learn something.

My theory has been that when you heat a coil and it collapses on itself, that point becomes the end of the spring (as far as load is concerned). so heating the spring doesn't really weaken the spring just makes it shorter. So heating the spring or cutting the spring has the same effect.

However, cutting the spring may give you ''slightly'' more travel because your removing some of the spring allowing ''slightly'' more clearance. As opposed to heating the spring where the "dead" part of the spring stays in the spring perch taking up ''spring travel'' space.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by riverhorse59

Originally posted by lt1s10 B]it will work fine prove riverhoese wrong


Well Mike, I'm just a simple guy that knows a little about a lot of things, And not a lot about anything. I have been proven wrong many times before and that doesn't bother me. At least I can say
learned something from the experience and Im not afraid to say, I'm sorry, I was wrong. We do have some scientist and engineers here that may be able to teach us something about temper of the steel. I do not believe You can heat those springs enough to make them colapse with out effecting the temper, therefore you will be adversely affecting the ride. When I cut off a rung of a spring with a cutoff wheel I am not effecting the temper of the steel. Because I have reduced the overall lenght of the spring, I am making it a little stiffer.I am not smart enough to compute exactly how much stiffer but I think I can get real close.

SO, Here is Your challenge. PROVE ME WRONG. Either way, We'll all learn something.

its gonna make the spring stiffer any time you shorten it either cutting it or heating it . when i heat a spring i go up the ring to where i would have cut it and only heat about 1 " of the spring and that part will sat down on the ring below it and that's all it is to it. I've laid wet rags, used dif. things on the upper part of the springs to help keep it cool, but if i hadn't no longer than it took to heat a 1" or so of the spring , what ever dif it may have made you couldn't have felt it in the car no way. i gonna say the dif in the heated spring(the way i did it )and the cut spring wont enough dif. to compute. you put a reg. 350 in your car i had a 454 with a 671 blower on it in mine(i needed a stiffer spring) so with stock springs it probably put my car right where i wanted it and your car with cut springs made it to stiff. you are not comparing apples with apples and i sure don't need a scientist or engineer to tell me how to lower my car. it did what i wonted it to do and that all that counts. sound like you might need that help though.

brickman_
What a maze Pro70!! You should be safe inside that cage. That baby is going to be a rush to drive when it's done!

lt1s10_
you gonna need a "pipe map" to get in and out. you could get lost in that thing.

................. and I don't have all the required tubes for a 25.4 chassis tacked in place yet.

I'll leave it up to the guys that should know more about it than either of us. Hopefully , they will chime in anytime. Pro, Mikes position doesnt suprize me one bit. Yours does. Wait A Minute!!!! I just got off the phone with HOTCHKIS Performance, Technical department. They told me the worst thing you can to do their spring or anyone elses is to heat it. The guy I talked to said he has set up chassis there for 6 years and he would never heat a spring, He says they cut springs all the time. The reason they dont is exactly what I just stated to you earlier. He says they pull out peoples heated springs all the time to throw then away.and start over.You may know someone that might be even more of an authority than HOTCHKIS Performance,but I dont know who that would be. Any Doubting Thomas might like to call them . 1-562-907-7757.

I got a nice phone call from riverhorse59 regarding the question of cutting versus heating coil springs from a scientific point of view. First the question of what makes iron into steel and then what makes steel into spring steel is not simple. First, Carbon is added to iron (0.01-0.1 %) to make iron into steel as a tougher material and less likely to crack as is cast iron and then there are hundreds of different heat treating processes to make spring steel.

http://www.psteel.com/tech_data/prop...=3&did=1&lid=5

I list the site to only one of many heat treatments for spring steel and it should be clear that the variables are the temperature range and the method of slow or rapid cooling. With several experienced builders local to me in the Virginia area I am not going to argue against your experience, but I am just going to state several factors and wrap up with my humble opinion. Note that my experience with springs has been entirely with Ford transverse buggy springs and torsion bars on VWs so I am not a material scientist specializing in spring steel.

1. Heating a spring surely changes the temper of the steel to some extent since the tempering conditions were more carefully controlled than is likely when one uses a torch in a garage even if wet rags protect the rest of the spring. Still the effect may not be great and may not be the deciding factor in the performance of the spring after heating. It is not easy to say without controlled heated and cooling conditions whether the spring will anneal to more like cast iron and be more brittle (less springy) or whether the metal will be weaker like soft steel, depending on cooling conditions.

2. Using a wood or metal block to limit the lowering effect of the heating is a sensible way to keep the spring from collapsing, but the part of the coil which is heated may still have the distance between coils greatly reduced.

3. Cutting a coil off one end of a spring with a dremel or other saw should not effect the quality of the steel in the way in which heating does and should not effect the temper of the steel, but if the performance of the spring travel is say 10% of it's length per coil turn, then reducing the number of turns of the coil will reduce the travel of the spring and since the spring is shorter now it may seem stiffer.

4. Forget the properties of the steel and consider the mechanical shape of the spring made of roughly 1/2" thick rod coiled around. At some point the coils can be compressed to where the coils touch themselves and then further compression is VERY HARD "spring binding"! Thus the available travel space between the coils has a lot to do with the limiting performance of the spring.

In my humble and limited opinion, I think item 4. is the main factor although either cutting or heating can be used if only a little lowering is used. It seems to me that cutting a coil or two off the length of a spring is the better way because the properties of the steel are unchanged, but the decreased length will probably make the ride a little stiffer. While heating the spring will certainly effect the temper of the steel, I think the main limiting factor is the reduction of the spacing between coils because by just heating the coils the same number of turns is there and the space between coils is less so they can touch each other as hard steel with less spring travel. In summary, heating does effect the spring temper, but the reduction in space between the coils can lead to a jaw-jarring ride if/when the coils are packed together, so again cutting a coil or two off does not change the temper of the steel and will keep the spacing between the coils, but the ride still may be stiffer since the spring travel is less. For those who have been satisfied with the easier method of just heating the coils, I think they probably avoided extreme lowering and the problem of spring binding. Of course I am aware that removing a coil and cutting it is not as easy as heating it in position. Note I have avoided entirely the topic of springs with shocks inside as in coil-overs where the shock absorber plays a large role in the ride, but even there the problem of coil binding is prevented by the shock absorber. Hey what do I know, I'm a transverse spring guy and I still don't know the best setting on my rear coil-overs and I will just experiment with them. That's my best guess! Conceiveably all the collected experience above may be correct, but I think there are several factors involved such as apples, oranges, grapes and maybe type of shock absorber. Finally, I would say if the lowering due to heating coils is relatively small, say 2" or less, there should be no problem, but if extreme lowering is desired it would seem to me that it is better to cut off a coil or two. Just my opinion!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Originally posted by Don Shillady
I got a nice phone call from riverhorse59 regarding the question of cutting versus heating coil springs from a scientific point of view. First the question of what makes iron into steel and then what makes steel into spring steel is not simple. First, Carbon is added to iron (0.01-0.1 %) to make iron into steel as a tougher material and less likely to crack as is cast iron and then there are hundreds of different heat treating processes to make spring steel.

http://www.psteel.com/tech_data/prop...=3&did=1&lid=5

I list the site to only one of many heat treatments for spring steel and it should be clear that the variables are the temperature range and the method of slow or rapid cooling. With several experienced builders local to me in the Virginia area I am not going to argue against your experience, but I am just going to state several factors and wrap up with my humble opinion. Note that my experience with springs has been entirely with Ford transverse buggy springs and torsion bars on VWs so I am not a material scientist specializing in spring steel.

1. Heating a spring surely changes the temper of the steel to some extent since the tempering conditions were more carefully controlled than is likely when one uses a torch in a garage even if wet rags protect the rest of the spring. Still the effect may not be great and may not be the deciding factor in the performance of the spring after heating. It is not easy to say without controlled heated and cooling conditions whether the spring will anneal to more like cast iron and be more brittle (less springy) or whether the metal will be weaker like soft steel, depending on cooling conditions.

2. Using a wood or metal block to limit the lowering effect of the heating is a sensible way to keep the spring from collapsing, but the part of the coil which is heated may still have the distance between coils greatly reduced.

3. Cutting a coil off one end of a spring with a dremel or other saw should not effect the quality of the steel in the way in which heating does and should not effect the temper of the steel, but if the performance of the spring travel is say 10% of it's length per coil turn, then reducing the number of turns of the coil will reduce the travel of the spring and since the spring is shorter now it may seem stiffer.

4. Forget the properties of the steel and consider the mechanical shape of the spring made of roughly 1/2" thick rod coiled around. At some point the coils can be compressed to where the coils touch themselves and then further compression is VERY HARD "spring binding"! Thus the available travel space between the coils has a lot to do with the limiting performance of the spring.

In my humble and limited opinion, I think item 4. is the main factor although either cutting or heating can be used if only a little lowering is used. It seems to me that cutting a coil or two off the length of a spring is the better way because the properties of the steel are unchanged, but the decreased length will probably make the ride a little stiffer. While heating the spring will certainly effect the temper of the steel, I think the main limiting factor is the reduction of the spacing between coils because by just heating the coils the same number of turns is there and the space between coils is less so they can touch each other as hard steel with less spring travel. In summary, heating does effect the spring temper, but the reduction in space between the coils can lead to a jaw-jarring ride if/when the coils are packed together, so again cutting a coil or two off does not change the temper of the steel and will keep the spacing between the coils, but the ride still may be stiffer since the spring travel is less. For those who have been satisfied with the easier method of just heating the coils, I think they probably avoided extreme lowering and the problem of spring binding. Of course I am aware that removing a coil and cutting it is not as easy as heating it in position. Note I have avoided entirely the topic of springs with shocks inside as in coil-overs where the shock absorber plays a large role in the ride, but even there the problem of coil binding is prevented by the shock absorber. Hey what do I know, I'm a transverse spring guy and I still don't know the best setting on my rear coil-overs and I will just experiment with them. That's my best guess! Conceiveably all the collected experience above may be correct, but I think there are several factors involved such as apples, oranges, grapes and maybe type of shock absorber. Finally, I would say if the lowering due to heating coils is relatively small, say 2" or less, there should be no problem, but if extreme lowering is desired it would seem to me that it is better to cut off a coil or two. Just my opinion!

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

'pro70 and denny said it better than i can and thats the way it is. i don't know why we're having this conversion anyway i lowered my car by heating the bottom ring of the spring for about 1" of the spring until the body sit down on a block of wood on each corner of the car which amounted to about a 2" drop and the springs didn't bind, didn't bottom out, the car road fine, the front end was aligned on a 4 wheel alignment machine to factory specks,and got good tire ware, i don't know what to say, I'm being told i cant do something that i know i did and it was done right and if it hadn't of drove good then i wouldn't have driven it like that. best i could tell very little heat went up into the upper coils. i wanted it to be stiffer and it turned out just like i planed it. i really don't care whether anybody else have done it or not or whether anybody else liked it, but it suited me just fine. if i can get a round track race car to go wide open turning left then i'm sure i can get a st. car to go straight down the road. a lesson on heating spring is a little late sense ive been cutting or heating them to to some degree or another for the last 40 yrs., and im just finding out you cant do it. the first round track race car i built i had a ply. torsion bar suspension under it and to stiffen the right front i cut the bar and cut about 3" out of it and welded it back together and raced the car 25-30 races and it never broke and i won the point champ with it and everybody said you couldn't do that either, but i did, so i dont know what this all means.

WOW!!! This is exactly why I love this forum, no matter what the subject is there are great conversations about them and all angles are opened allowing people to learn and make better choices on thier own cars. You guys impress me to no end, don't ever stop these discussions.

As for my truck and the reason all this discussion started, I haven't got to it yet, I ended up haveing to refabricate all the brackets on the engine. I don't know where they came from but they didn't fit and there was a large assortment of oversized nuts and washers for spacers. I cut new spacers out of pipe, got new bolts, and cut and welded the brackets to work the way they should. Now I have everything hooked back up and only thing left is the exhaust and the drive line and it will be lowering time. After all this discussion I think I am going to heat them and see what happens.

Once again thanks guys.