Miatav8,MstrASE,A&P,F wrote:
The liners, buttons, and pads all do the same thing; reduce friction between leafs.
Without these things, leaf springs would rub against each other, primarily at the ends.
This friction wears the springs and increases the damping and spring rate for a rougher ride and bind and stick if ignored long enough.
The good news is most oems have had isolators since the 60s.
These isolators are usually made from plastic but were heavy fabric in the 50’s.
80’s cars and trucks have nylon pads that snap into holes in the leaf ends and usually a single alignment clamp for all springs for minimal friction.
I believe the 70’s mgb spring came with full length liners and alignment clamps at each end of each leaf, located by a protruding pin.
Speedway sells universal liner strips with a flanged edge or you can make your own from nylon or Teflon sheet or rolls the width of the spring.
For higher rate from extra leafs without raising the ride height, reverse eye main leafs can be used, drop blocks, or reduce the stack arc. For progressive, the extra leafs can be shimmed away or de-arced.
I’d look at making caltrack style bars for traction that provide good clearance, maybe an overrider instead, 60’s Shelby mustang bars, traction dampers used on 80’s mustangs, the list goes on. Just something to prevent the axle from rotating during accel due to spring deformation between the axle and front eye. RVs and heavy duty trucks have used coil springs in tension above the spring between the front eye and axle.
There is so many ways to do different things with leafs. Kinda like going to starbucks and trying to decide on what coffee to get.
I’ll look into it, thanks for the ideas. I cut the rear spring attachments off because I have the coilovers in my head. It wouldn’t take anything to weld new ones back on. Hmmmm, makes me think. Leafs are defiantly a easier set up that coil overs and 4bars. I did look at the cost and the cost is the same awhile back. The trouble is I have the bars.