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Post by seventyonehemicuda on Aug 16, 2015 0:01:04 GMT -5
unless you are building a serious, serious car, i wouldn't bother short leafing. its a lot of work. and if you are short leafing it would be better to put the springs directly in line with the frame rails (even bigger job), and if you are doing that you may as well run a good flat stack, and so on and so on. but the easy hard way is usually one will take the rear suspension out of the back end of an 80's GM pickup truck. leafs, shackles, hangers and all... weld it to the side of the frame rails and away you go.
I take the easy way out most of the time, pull all the short leafs and add all the big leafs from another stack and clamp them all together as tight as possible.
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Post by runit28 on Nov 16, 2015 16:33:21 GMT -5
Just bought my first leaf spring car. I see people talking about flipping leaf springs. I am confused on what this means. I have looked for a description and couldn't find one that made sense to me. Could anyone explain what it is? Is it when you take the leafs apart and flip one or more to go the opposite direction so in stead of being the u shape it goes in a n shape? I have also seen someone say take one ore more of the middle leafs out and rebuild the pack with them on top of the main. Or is it simply moving the springs from under the axel to on top of the axel? I know I asked a lot of questions, sorry. Any help would be appreciated.
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Post by seventyonehemicuda on Nov 16, 2015 23:04:35 GMT -5
Just bought my first leaf spring car. I see people talking about flipping leaf springs. I am confused on what this means. I have looked for a description and couldn't find one that made sense to me. Could anyone explain what it is? Is it when you take the leafs apart and flip one or more to go the opposite direction so in stead of being the u shape it goes in a n shape? I have also seen someone say take one ore more of the middle leafs out and rebuild the pack with them on top of the main. Or is it simply moving the springs from under the axel to on top of the axel? I know I asked a lot of questions, sorry. Any help would be appreciated. flipping leafs or "flat stacking" is taking every second spring and flipping it over. you will need to make up a type of a press in order to squash them back together. what you are trying to do is to make the bow of every reversed spring cancel out the bow of the one above it. creating a hard stack. if you have a similar car with the same basic leaf stack ie: 78 nyer and a 75 newport you can pull all of the small short springs out of the bottom of one stack and take all the long leafs from the donor stack. this gives you a long flat stack of leafs. when clamped with multiple clamps these act as an extra frame rail, they help keep the tail end down. and make the back end much stronger. take a look through the pic section, usually you will see leaf cars that have whale tailed have had no leafs or clamps added. IMO its best to leave the long leafs on top. just find a donor leaf pack and scavenge the top 3-4 leafs. even take the top eye leaf and cut the "eyes" off the ends. the bottom 3 leafs are usually only 12-18 inches long.
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Post by runit28 on Nov 17, 2015 9:13:12 GMT -5
Just bought my first leaf spring car. I see people talking about flipping leaf springs. I am confused on what this means. I have looked for a description and couldn't find one that made sense to me. Could anyone explain what it is? Is it when you take the leafs apart and flip one or more to go the opposite direction so in stead of being the u shape it goes in a n shape? I have also seen someone say take one ore more of the middle leafs out and rebuild the pack with them on top of the main. Or is it simply moving the springs from under the axel to on top of the axel? I know I asked a lot of questions, sorry. Any help would be appreciated. flipping leafs or "flat stacking" is taking every second spring and flipping it over. you will need to make up a type of a press in order to squash them back together. what you are trying to do is to make the bow of every reversed spring cancel out the bow of the one above it. creating a hard stack. if you have a similar car with the same basic leaf stack ie: 78 nyer and a 75 newport you can pull all of the small short springs out of the bottom of one stack and take all the long leafs from the donor stack. this gives you a long flat stack of leafs. when clamped with multiple clamps these act as an extra frame rail, they help keep the tail end down. and make the back end much stronger. take a look through the pic section, usually you will see leaf cars that have whale tailed have had no leafs or clamps added. IMO its best to leave the long leafs on top. just find a donor leaf pack and scavenge the top 3-4 leafs. even take the top eye leaf and cut the "eyes" off the ends. the bottom 3 leafs are usually only 12-18 inches long. Okay, I looked through pictures and saw some mean flat stacks and I did notice that the cars with more leafs seamed to hold up better. Going to run a 78 doba next year and I just want to get all the advice I can so I can build it well and not waste it's potential. Thank you for the description and help.
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Post by kentstang on May 13, 2016 12:33:11 GMT -5
Anyone got any input on wether or,not to leaf a 4th gen mustang or just keep it 4 link? Iam narrowing a 8.8 ranger rearend and It obvious already has the perches. If I do this I can run up to 9 leafs per side and 6 clamps. Thanks for the help
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Post by norton81 on Feb 3, 2017 1:52:03 GMT -5
Are super duty leafs under 77 ltd2 wagon be to much for the car?
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Post by sheffield2 on Feb 5, 2017 9:16:38 GMT -5
unless you are building a serious, serious car, i wouldn't bother short leafing. its a lot of work. and if you are short leafing it would be better to put the springs directly in line with the frame rails (even bigger job), and if you are doing that you may as well run a good flat stack, and so on and so on. but the easy hard way is usually one will take the rear suspension out of the back end of an 80's GM pickup truck. leafs, shackles, hangers and all... weld it to the side of the frame rails and away you go. I take the easy way out most of the time, pull all the short leafs and add all the big leafs from another stack and clamp them all together as tight as possible. I have to disagree with it being harder I just made me a mount for each end of my leafspring fully boxed in even if I break a bolt the leafspring will not come out of my mount and just mount your leaf pack on your rearend roll it under the car let it down so the front mounts touch the frame tack it and then weld the back up then just cut my mounts off the frame when the cars done grind my welds off and take it to the next one
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Post by sheffield2 on Feb 5, 2017 9:31:16 GMT -5
I have since boxed my mounts in more
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Post by seventyonehemicuda on Feb 6, 2017 23:52:24 GMT -5
unless you are building a serious, serious car, i wouldn't bother short leafing. its a lot of work. and if you are short leafing it would be better to put the springs directly in line with the frame rails (even bigger job), and if you are doing that you may as well run a good flat stack, and so on and so on. but the easy hard way is usually one will take the rear suspension out of the back end of an 80's GM pickup truck. leafs, shackles, hangers and all... weld it to the side of the frame rails and away you go. I take the easy way out most of the time, pull all the short leafs and add all the big leafs from another stack and clamp them all together as tight as possible. I have to disagree with it being harder I just made me a mount for each end of my leafspring fully boxed in even if I break a bolt the leafspring will not come out of my mount and just mount your leaf pack on your rearend roll it under the car let it down so the front mounts touch the frame tack it and then weld the back up then just cut my mounts off the frame when the cars done grind my welds off and take it to the next one *sips coffee* Yeah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with ya there. It appears like you have a somewhat serious build. you have a purpose built differential 14 bolt full floater, frame with hump plates trunk lid bolts down to the frame?, not exactly a beginner setup.... when you already have a differential with relocated spring perches and flat stacks its not that tough to do, but to do it all from scratch?, that's a big job. building flat stacks isn't exaclty simple. it takes time, some trial and error, some bleeding and a whole mix of curse words. not only is it hard work and time consuming but a flat stack is an absolute must because simply relocating stock leafs to the under side of frame rail of any car will lift the back end bumper height 8-12" which is not exactly desirable in derby world. cutting/moving and re-welding spring perches isn't exactly child's play either. not to mention that short leafing is likely going to change the location of the pinion and may cause a need to alter drive shaft length (especially if upgrading from say a corporate 10 bolt to a 14 bolt). Having a pre-fabricated setup and a slider shaft can make for an easy, simple install but not everyone has these things just lying around.
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Post by STROMI 121 on Jun 29, 2017 9:41:35 GMT -5
Leaf sprung cars usually don't go down.
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Post by Luke Wells on Jun 29, 2017 13:36:26 GMT -5
Does it count when they can't chain around the axle and it pinches the humps and look like a dog sh!tting?
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cw09
Heat Winner
Posts: 528
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Post by cw09 on Apr 15, 2018 18:27:07 GMT -5
Anyone have pictures of leafs that are flat steel?
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3G
Heat Winner
Posts: 177
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Post by 3G on Apr 24, 2018 5:29:13 GMT -5
Not sure if this is exactly the proper thread for this question, but.... has anybody ever have a leafed car go down in the back? My brother keeps telling me it's never going to happen with a leafed rear, but I keep thinking if the leaf pack is damn near flat there's not a lot keeping it from going down. I'm sure it's still unlikely, but it would suck if it did. Mostly I'm asking because I'm getting ready to put a rear bumper on and I'm trying to decide how to mount it and if I need to worry about it going down in the rear. I have seen a couple of cars that were leafed go down...but with that being said the rearend was not chained... the humps completely went to shit... Also this is before gas tank protectors to the rear firewall were allowed. I'm not sure how one would go down if the leafs were built properly, w/ gas tank protector, rearend chained down appropriately.. etc. The car that dropped would have to be getting hit by a train in my opinion.
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Post by sheffield2 on Mar 26, 2019 21:00:18 GMT -5
Ok so not necessarily a leaf spring question but how is the easiest way to put I screw in spring spacers I have to be missing something every time I put them in they kick my ass
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Post by dean88 on Mar 26, 2019 21:15:41 GMT -5
The spreader tool for a porta power is the easiest way
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