Thread: Rear springs leaf count?

Originally Posted by Jordan

My 2A sits low at the rear - looks like saggy springs as everything else checks out OK. There are 11 leaves in each.

Happily, I have some springs on a donor S3 that are in better shape, but these have only 9 leaves, look thicker.
Would these be less soft than the 11's?

Jordan

I am guessing you have a SWB? 11 leaf rears are the SWB springs and are only 160 lb/in in rate.

9-leaf (7.1 mm thick leaves) are Extra Heavy Duty LWB springs - about 500 lb/in. They will be far too stiff for a SWB, and give you almost no wheel travel offroad.

Either get the 11-leaf rears reset or take 3 leaves out of the 9-leaf rears and get them reset.

Thanks for this info.
Sounds like the 9 leafs aren't the way to go then, on my SWB, alas.

Who does spring resetting? I'm halfway between Sydney and Canberra.

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Originally Posted by isuzurover

Either get the 11-leaf rears reset or take 3 leaves out of the 9-leaf rears and get them reset.

Removing some leaves from the 9-leafs sounds good.
Is -3 from experience the best number to remove, to simulate the 11-leafer?
Would they need to be reset, if the ride height looks OK already?

Thanks for the suggestion.

Originally Posted by Jordan

Removing some leaves from the 9-leafs sounds good.
Is -3 from experience the best number to remove, to simulate the 11-leafer?
Would they need to be reset, if the ride height looks OK already?

Thanks for the suggestion.

Here is a description of what I did to my (LW:
Bris-Perth - So far so good

Your 9-leaf springs are 500 lb/in as mentioned. Removing 3 will give you about 300 lb/in which would be stiff but give you better ride height and load carrying ability but would be quite stiff offroad. It all depends what you are looking for. The modified 9-leaf springs may be OK without resetting but they are originally set to a much lower free camber than the 11-leaf because they are so stiff - so you usually need to increase the free camber if you are removing leaves.

May I pester you with some more questions?

- What do you mean by camber?
- How are the spring leaves tapered?
- With some leaves removed, I guess I'd have to do some blacksmithing to the clips that retain them, as the stack would be thinner? Or, is it OK not to worry about that?
- Would removing 4 out of 9 springs be wise? - for comfort.

I'd like to find the book you mentioned, "leaf spring design manual".

Thanks again.

My comments below:

Originally Posted by Jordan

May I pester you with some more questions?

- What do you mean by camber?

See image here:
http://www.acetyresandauto.com.au/Su...ings-specs.jpg


- How are the spring leaves tapered?

Standard semi-elliptic springs (which all of your sets are) are not tapered. You may have seen my comments about chopping the ends of each leaf so they form a trapezoid though?

- With some leaves removed, I guess I'd have to do some blacksmithing to the clips that retain them, as the stack would be thinner? Or, is it OK not to worry about that?

You can leave the retainers as-is. It will allow the pack to flex more on down-travel

- Would removing 4 out of 9 springs be wise? - for comfort.

Yes.

I'd like to find the book you mentioned, "leaf spring design manual".

Thanks again.