If you use the wrong liners, they fill with road dirt & the noise never stops. Prefer to sand wear from leaves & pack with waterproof grease, then wrap each spring with a couple rolls of extra high quality electrical tape.
I have not used them on the front of any car, but on the rear of a few. I have found that they react much faster than a conventional shackle, being that they lack the torsion of a set of pre-loaded rubber bushings. For this reason, you must make sure that your shock absorbers are absolutely up to the task, and this will alter the effective resonance frequency of the suspension. Keep in mind, the imaginary line between the spring eyelets on leaf springs is chosen to produce a particular function in the suspension, steering, and alignment. If you are considering replacing shackles with a set of these, for the purpose of lowering, you will be altering critical suspension, steering, and alignment functions.
At one time AFCO had a pretty good write-up on their website about how they were different from shackles on the rear. I wouldnt attempt to regurgitate it here, but you might be able to find it online, if you're interested in reading it.
I don't think I would use those on a front application. I just don't like the idea of that getting torsional load from the side from steering. It would probably be fine, but then I tend to over engineer things to the point of ridiculous sometimes...
We use them on the back and I have a parallel leaf front on my 40 Chev LSR coupe. Never thought of it but you could figure out a type of panhard bar whether full or 1/2 I suppose it would work. I do like the bearings on them. Good luck.
my thinking is that it would increase roll stiffness on the front axle on the car. going to be running tuneable dampers all around so im not too worried about the reduced "spring" of a conventional bushing/shackle. other thing is that it looks like it would reduce axle rotation under compression, having some big caster changes on wheelies or on the brakes in a bumpy shutdown area worries me.
With the slot angled up away from the spring it would reduce the amount the car is lifted when the axle hits a bump, but would increase body roll in a curve. So I am thinking this more of an off road slider detail.
I thought having them angled reduced the sliding resistance and made whatever end of the leaf travel up words for more caster change under compression? how would they increase body roll? really the only way would be to twist the leaf itself with a slider rather then compress the bushings in a shackle and twist the shackle slightly itself.
how would this put a torsional load on the steering? the axle should travel in less of an arc and with less rotation (depending on slider configuration) than a comparable shackle sprung setup from what i can tell by looking at them.
Not a load on the steering, a load on the slider from the steering. It has bearings that roll as the spring flexs. It probably would have no affect on it at all. And the more I think about it the more I think it would work just ok. I would think the slider should be up front to keep from catching dirt and grit being thrown of the tires . Or maybe a cover of some kind over it.
Nailhead, are you talking about the link from the pitman arm to the knuckle? the drag link? reducing roll and movement will reduce bump steer. Even the roller bearing sliders work fine for the jeep and offroad guys getting covered in grit and other garbage, I imagine it would be fine on a 9sec limited street use car.
Did a little research and the slot should point to the front spring eye . Since factory rear leaf setups have the front eye lower to reduce roll steer, the slot is angled. Not applicable to front leaf I would think.
With a beam axle with "side steer", the fixed spring hanger should be behind the axle if the steering box is behind the axle, the slider or shackle should be on the other side [the opposite applies if the steering box is in front of the axle] This is so the drag link arcs on a path similar to the fixed 1/2 of the spring, and reduces mechanical bump steer. Roll steer generally only applies to rear ends where the wheels are perpendicular to the axle, so any change in wheelbase [due to spring arc] will cause the axle to steer. changing the angle of the slider or shackle angle only changes the "spring load" not the spring stiffness. If the slider was angle upwards ,it would soften the spring load. [eg: 2" of suspension travel might only be 1-3/4" of spring compression if the eye slides upwards 1/4"] If both sliders are angled the same it usually alters dynamic ride height, whereas using 2 different slder angles is a very good tuning tool that oval racers use [similar to weight jackers on coil springs] This method can only be used diagonally to "wedge" a car by increasing spring load on one side and decreasing spring load on the other
The Jalopy Journal
