i have used two FRONT monoleafs..not my choice first was on a `33 ford...the car now has 1000+ miles and seams to be fine , it did settle a lttle after a few hunderd miles , all springs do the second was in a `32 ford....the spring went flat as soon as i put the motor in...the spring clamp was touching the top of the axle. it got replaced no charge..the replacement seams to have held up for about 700 miles that's all i know
I put a Durant under my '40 Ford coupe and it made the ride a lot better plus I could adjust the front height easily. Drove the car for 30K miles ,sold it to a guy in Fla. First time out with it, the front spring broke. Durant made good on it. They'd never heard of one breaking before. Maybe he was playing Dukes of Hazzard with the car.
did it break right at the center bolt hole? i have seen several broken ones and that is where they all broke
They can break anywhere. They are very highly stressed and any nick or flaw will eventually cause them to break.The one I changed was broken halfway out to the end.
I was speaking to a guy at a rod run about his Hemi powered Deuce roadster and told him that I wanted to run a monoleaf on my car,....well, he just about spit his teeth out, he went on a rant about how unsafe they were, how GM dosen't use them anymore, how one broke off at the eye and the driver wadded up the car and the manufacturer is in litigation with a wrongful death suit .....this guy was a mechanical engineer and he seemed to know what he was talking about.......he scared the **** out of me,....I'll be running a multi-leaf!
mono or multi leaf springs will fail . the mono leaf will ride better and you can move the shim pack to adjust ride hight. just use a front panhard bar it prevents the axle from shifting if the spring fails. we had a shop car break a multi leaf spring took out 3 sections of guard rail slid through the timming lights at 86 mph than took out 2 more sections luckily no one was injured , no car will leave my shop without a front panhard bar on it now. latter dave
This article explains why I would never use mono-leaf springs on anything: http://www.eatonsprings.com/monoleaf.htm Dave http://www.roadsters.com/
Read the article, and it all makes sense to me... I was just talking to an old member of Slo-Pokes and he said he and his buddies were having a big debate over mono-leafs. After the conversation with him, I know I won't use them. The article confirms it for me - there are other, safer ways to lower my Ford.
I ran mono leafs on the front of a 63 ford pickup with 425 olds. Drove it 60+ miles a day with no problems. Ended up parting out the truck, put the leafs on the rear of a 39 ford truck and put alot of miles on it with no problems. I don't think I would use them again though, just seems kinda sketchy now, maybe I'm getting too old.
Know what you mean - there are a lot of things I used to do and wouldn't think of doing now... My 9 month old little girl rides in that truck.
The article makes good sense, except they only talk about GM's use of monoleafs... Ford STILL used monoleaf springs until AT LEAST year 2000. Maybe the aftermarket ones that are breaking aren't the same quality as the stock Ford units, but I had like 170,000 miles on an Explorer with monoleaf rear springs that never had a spring issue. It did sag after a while though.
riverrat : I cant see no big problem using monoleaf(s) on an early Ford ( With stock style transverse leaf spring suspension !! ) I guess most of us build those cars with 2" or maybe 3" suspension-travel , and IF the spring should fail , then the worst case scenario is that the axle will hit the axle bumper . ( more or less the same exsperience you will have when one of your tires decides to fart ) Raven61 asked a valid Q : What are you looking to put them on? Klaz
Early Chevy II's(Novas) and '67 Camaro's ran Monoleafs in the rear, FACTORY......they are not that dangerous.............that article above was from an aftermarket spring manufacturer correct???? BIASED??? GM owners may have experienced a failure or two due to excessive wheel hop in higher HP cars. Novas were bad for that, hence traction bars. I'm using a TCI mono on the front of my ride......if it fails, the suspension just will drop.....front is located with the wishbones and panhard bars........ Some people will OVERANAYLIZE everything and never get anything done.......
I have a couple thousand miles on a duece with a durant mono leaf, rides great, no problems at all. You have to watch tech articles from a manufacturer against another manufactuer. Most homebuilt tailwheel airplanes run a mono leaf type spring for the main gear, rv8's ect. No problems with them and they hit the run way pretty hard sometimes.
The eaton springs argument against mono leaf springs is ENTIRELY based on axle control on a parrallel leaf suspended rear during spring failure. A transverse leaf early ford front, with a panhard, is a totally different situation.
SinisterCustom I think you hit the nail on the head. That article seems to be very biased and a bit ambiguous as well here is another line from that article: Every broken GM steel mono-leaf spring I have seen, which has been less than 5 out of the thousands we have sold, have been broken at the axle. So basically they SELL monoleafs as well and they admit that the percentage of failures is well below 1%. So more than 99% of them are OK based on their numbers in the text. We're using a Durant mono on the front of our basically stock '47 ford with a flathead and plan on putting a rear mono in next month. Another big thing to consider is how are you going to drive your car and what are the roads like by you. Here in the Metro NY area the roads ain't exactly like gl***
{Contrary to what has been written in magazines by people who only sell springs, not make them, mono-leaf springs are inherently dangerous. Remember, all springs have a finite life, that is one day they will break. When designing a leaf spring this eventual breaking must be taken into account. What will happen to the spring and the vehicle should this failure happen when a vehicle is in motion? A correctly designed multi-leaf spring is designed so each leaf carries a proportional amount of load, is stressed equally, and will provide support to the vehicle when it fails.} As to finite life...a quality steel has an endurance limit, meaning that the number of stress cycles before failure is in the millions. A spring by definition should be stressed/loaded within it's elastic region...meaning a light enough load as to prevent permanent deformation. IF you were to damage the surface of a monoleaf, OR a steel mainleaf, then you are creating a stress riser, where the local stress may be high enough to initiate a crack. A jacketing or coating would help prevent against this injury in either application. The panhard bar sounds like a good idea to maintain position of a tranverse spring in event of failure, then you settle onto the shocks as they bottom out. In ****ysis of the failure of either type, the claim above of "inherently dangerous" is less than complete. Properly sized and properly installed, they each would serve their function. Upon a failure, I would make sure the suspension remains in stable geometrical "form" ie: non-squirrely! I need to research the composite spring or urethane types, to see what the fatigue and failure history is. Anyone?
actually in the early novas 62-67 , it is pretty common to find broken springs.....usually right at the spring eye at the front.....i've had 2 like this.....and i know of a couple guys that wrecked a race car because of this.....as for hot rod use......i will take a posie super slide over a mono any day .....easier to dial in a ride and ride height......brandon
Ive run em in my cars with no breakage. On my coupe ive got a chromed multi leaf and its great and rides good in the front. Ive got a paintable super slide in the roadster and ill prolly paint it and leave it. Dave
Relative newbie around here even though I lurk. I found this old thread because I've come across a CL ad for a full set of new, never-installed monoleafs for my '55 2nd series truck with 283/350 ****** and 10 bolt rear end for only $400 obo. As a comparison, The Car & Truck Shop in Orange, CA gets $389 for front lowering springs multileafs and the same for the rear! So, basically less than half the cost: $800+ vs, $350-$400 total. I'm sorely tempted to buy them but I AM concerned about the safety issue. More opinions for this application? Truck wil be a clean driver, no real intention to use it as a truck though I MIGHT someday tow my jetski's to the lake with it. Any advice appreciated
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