Remember my upside-down spring idea ???

I'm putting it to the test on the HooDoo Witch.
I'll post an update on the whole project when I have time to do the StarPhoto thing.

I still don't know if this spring thing has ever been done (I can't believe it hasn't)...

It's a '34 Ford spring,. I used the two C-clamp retainers that were on it, and only had to put a relativly small amount of pressure on to clamp the ends together. I did have to cut about 5/8" off of the ends of each leaf. They had a slight kick-up to keep them from binding in the stock position... They really dug in this way. Notice that the longest leaves are tight together, and the next "set" of smaller ones are also, but I ended up with a slight gap between the sets. I'm hoping that shorter set will act as a "helper" .
I'm probably going to have to mess with the number leaves a little to get it figured out...

If it acts goofy, I can always change it, but I just have to find out.
I don't see why this won't work...
Anybody...???

JOE

 

I can't wait to hear the results of this. It might just work. The only thing I can think off is this: the spring, while in the traditional position, spreads apart creating the tension. When all the leafs are reversed and flipped over, they are being pushed the opposite way. I'm not sure there will be enough, if any, uh...spring in that design. I see it not being cushy at all, and being very harsh. Now put an engine in that thing so we can find out if it works.

 

Joe...I dunno why it won't work either...I did something similar with my lakes-modified, only using a pair of parallel leafs in the front, turned upside down and reshuffled the spring pack just like you did. I never got it on the road but I did stack sandbags on the frame rails approximating the weight of the finished car [had a 250 chev between the rails too] and bounced it up and down with 200 lbs of pure Rocky...it seemed to work just fine...

 

I'm no mechanical engineer, but I don't think it's going to work. When your perch goes down, all the work will be transfered to the main leaf that will try to pull the wishbones in and all the short leafs will just be along for the ride. I also think that you're putting a lot of weight on those wishbones with the perches mounted so far back.

Like I said it's just a gut feel kind of thing and I'm sure there's a few engineers here that will state it better than I can.

I'll be watching this to see what the experts have to say.+

Of course you could have made this post a poll

Dennis

 

VERY INTERESTING.what the hell, why not try it.let us know the results.

 

I think it's gonna break.

It's gonna pull instead of push and put alot of stress on the wishbones. I think it will yank the perches out, or bust them off.

I'm kind of reckless and dumb, but that somehow SCARES me.

 

um, yeah Joe. the only leaf that will be doing anything is the main leaf. you'd need a regular leaf spring like out of the rear of paralel leaf suspension with all the short leaves below the main. other than that i am curious to see what it does. i would be a bit worried about the strength of the wishbones. get the right spring in the front and good luck!!!

Mike

 

Just so's I'm clear, here...

I took the entire spring pack apart, and re-stacked them...
I didn't just flip the spring upside-down.
Now the spring works like Cupid's bow.

Here's the link to my previous post about it...
-->My old post<--

And as far as putting an engine in it. The frame sits so low, that I can't get my cherry picker to roll under it...

As far as all the worries about bending the wishbones...
The shackles will pivot quite a ways, before the wishbones start to "pull". Them bones are made of Henry Ford's "special" steel. They're right around 1/4" thick. I plan to use Model-A spring perch bolts, mounted through the bones by way of a fitted "crush" sleeve welded through both sides, and then putting the perch through that.

Last but not least... The way she sits, I have a 132" wheelbase.

 

The only problem I see is that in the conventional mounting any weight would widen the distance between the spring eyes and cause the shackles to straighten out where the reversed spring will cause the shackles to draw in even more than they are now. Just watch out for speed bumps

 

i'm sure someone who knows suspensions could find a dozen reasons it won't work, BUT considering the overall layout of the truck, cab position etc. i say all bets are off. like many of us, i've put a few miles on suspensions that don't figure on the slide rule, but function well enough in the real world on our heaps. some work good, some don't. try it and see, but i demand that if you do, that you MUST have a "smile" in the tie rod to match the spring and axle! because if you are gonna put form before function, you had damn well better get the form down right! how about a drilled I-beam tie rod to match a drilled axle? wouldn't be "too" hard to do. now that you got me thinkin, how *****in would it look to have lightening holes in the spring itself? hmmmm, abrasive waterjet...no heat...

anyway, i don't know my susp geometery, but i sense a problem with it maybe having excessive roll, a sway bar may be a good idea.

if the leaf spring don't work as planned, consider a mono leaf, it would eliminate some of the problems of the setup, spring binding in particular. you could always wrap the mono leaf in some tin, tape, or maybe leather, if you wanted to keep a trad look to it.

i say go for it.

i hope you have an insane motor planned?

 

i'm not a mechanical engineer either... i dropped out when they introduced time-variant four dimensional vector fields to the compulsory maths cl***, and started my own business instead.

now, i don't wish to jump on the naysayers bandwagon, but i would like to offer some toughts on the matter. for the record, i think it WILL work, but it will be ****. here's why:

with the leaf pack used in the conventional manner, the force is transferred to the MIDDLE of the smallest leaf first. this leaf absorbs some of the force itself (and stores the potential energy) and transfers the rest through the MIDDLE of the next leaf, which does the same, etc until we get to the main leaf, which resolves all of that force through the mounts into the body of the car.

flipped upside down (and i can see that you repacked them, but even so) the force starts in the main leaf, at the ENDS, and for all intents and purposes resolves straight to the body, as the leaves are all packed touching each other at your central shackle, and may as well just be a block of steel.

however, the smaller leaves will do something, and the something i think is, unfortunately, eat your main leaf. as the radius of the main leaf decreases under load (the circle it draws becomes tighter), the other leaves will also have to decrease in radius to accomodate themselves. this may result in some additional suspension effect, but i fear that largely it will result in the tips of each leaf munching the **** out of the body of the next leaf lower down, causing all sorts of binding, noise, damage and, eventually, possible, total failure.

this doesn't happen with the leaves arranged in the normal manner because, when force is applied, the radius of each leaf increases, forcing the tip of the leaf AWAY from it's brothers, and saving them from harm.

it might work, and you're welcome to try. but i wouldn't use it.

 

Well, I think I agree with the side that says the spring is trying to close up on itself, and therefore the ride will tend to be more harsh. I do think it is capable of working to hold the car up. Just not sure of the ride quality.

I also think you are putting a pretty significant side bending load on the bones, which they were never intended to have. Let me try to explain. If you take the angle of the shackle and the force in it. In this case the shackle is in tension. Now imagine that force on the angle as being two forces that are exactly one vertical and one horizontal. The vertical force is the weight of the car. The horizontal force is the one that is trying to push the bones apart. This is supplied by the spring. The bones are not intended to handle this much sideways loading. Will it be a long term problem? I do not know, but you are definitely adding forces that were never intended.

I know that your car has less weight on the front end. Which is a big help for the resulting forces. It just seems to me that at a minimum, you need to inspect the bones and the shackle mounts very close at frequent intervals to make sure no cracks have initiated.

 

judgeing by how long that front is i cant help but wonder if the motor is going to be seriosly set back causing the front wheels to be off the ground most the time making ride quality a small issue

 

Joe,

I think it will work, and well. There are two things I'd worry about though:

1) Make sure you chamfer or radius the ends of each leaf where it will contact the leaf below it. Maybe put teflon between the leafs so they wont bind as much? I don't see how the leaves would act all that much differently while shrinking than they do when expanding. Don't conventional leaves provide springing on the upstroke and downstroke of a bounce? As far as I can see, you're just swapping the upstroke and downstroke.

2) Make sure those shackles are mounted VERY securely to the wishbones. As the spring contracts it's going to try its best to rip them out. Other than that, I can't see how the spring moving in or our would place any more or less stress on the bones.


Keep us updated!


Ed

 

well, i know nuthin. but...
the main leaf is made too small for the shackles so is stretched to fit. this means that the weight of car is trying to spread the spring, while the built in tension in the spring is trying to pull it in. get that?? so, the spring is under two seperate forces at the same time??

with your spring, maybe it should be flat, so that when fitted it has to be wound in to fit,the cars weight will then be trying to pull the spring back in as it pushes down?? so you then have the two forces again.
did that make sense?? am i talkin ****e?? have you done it anyway??

im gonna shut up now..........

 

if you look close, there are no perches on the wishbones where the shackles are, the shackles are just laying aganst the bones, if the perches projected inward about 2" on each side from the wishbone, it will put the shackles in a more workable angle, eliminating some of the concern over pulling on dem bones, than shown in this mockup.

 

Good eye, RAY...

No, there are no perches, and the tails of the bones are going to be spread further apart, also. The shackles will be almost straight down, but slightly inward toward the spring (more like the one shown on the left in the first pic). That should give it alot of travel.

I do intend to round the leading edges of the leaves, so they don't dig into the ones they ride on. Teflon is a good idea, but I was thinking of just using good ol' Permatex anti sieze. Slippery as snot on a doorknob...

JOE

 

I think the concept is workable,but you are REALLY pushing the limits.Are you going to use the same concept on the rear axle?

 

Pushing the limits... Yeah, that's it!

I'm running the spring (high arch model-T rear spring) in front of the rearend, yes. Sort of a reverse suicide set-up. However, I'm not flipping it.
I'll weld a lateral brace along the length of each of the trailing arms (1/2" plate) and the spring perches won't be as far from the rear axle as in the front.

A cold beer to the first one who can tell the cl*** where the box sides came from...


JOE

 

Junkyard, I'd guess the bed sides are pieces of Chevy running boards. Close?

Frank

 

Yeah it'll hold the car up, for a while.

There will be NO spring action.

Ride will ****, parts will fail.

Fill out your Darwin award application before you drive it more than around the block, and please don’t drive in front of anyone.

Do you really think it could p*** tech? Or inspection?

'bout as smart as a spike for a horn ****on.

Paul

 

I say it won't work, for all of the above reasons, someone would have thought of it by now. Think back to the 20's &amp; 30's when there was a lot of experimentaion with suspension such as 1/4 eliptic springs and other wierd ****, don't recall seing anything like this in a book, however....I admire you for "thinking outside the square", will be checking for results of actual drive test.

 

I would think that if you were gonna try a setup like this, a mono leaf would be a much better spring to use, or remake the accompaning springs to taper as to not put stress in a dedicated area. I hope you reinforce those bones, but I have never heard of a set of bones failing with the spring mounted to em. I hope it works though, it looks *****in....good luck

 

[ QUOTE ]
Junkyard, I'd guess the bed sides are pieces of Chevy running boards. Close?

Frank

[/ QUOTE ]

Close enough.I owe you a beer... maybe two... for the Man-a-Fre stuff.
They're from a '36 Ford 1 1/2 ton.
They don't need to be altered a bit.
The price of these is gonna go through the roof on Ebay.
I'll be rich...
Don't tell anyone... O.K.?

JOE

 

Here's another shot.

 

Hey, wait...
It was LA32 who sent me the Man-a-Fre stuff...
Sorry Louie...

You too, Frank.
Yer back down to one beer.


JOE

 

How much stuff is done by people on this board that other people said "Aw that aint never work!"? I can see the reasons why it shouldnt work,but hey who knows it might. I say try it. If it dont work that another post for another day.


NOW.....Any plans for those six-lug wheels in the background of the first picture?

 

First off, yeah, if it doesn't work, what am I out? A couple of bones and maybe a spring.... and a few hours of rework.
My take on the whole "traditional - Hotrod" thing is this:
The first guy to heat and drop an axle... Did his peers say, "Yer ****in' nuts!"
The first suicide front end... Did they say, "Yer gonna die!"
The first guy to heat or cut coils... Same thing.
The point is, just because it hasn't been done here on the H.A.M.B. doesn't mean it hasn't been done.
As far as seeing it in magazines...?
Most mags, unless it's a tech article, just show the pretty parts of cars. You know, the metalflake wheel or the tiki shifter. When's the last time a pic of some cool suspension was in an article covering some national event?

My deuce was built back in the '70s, just like all the cars my dad built in highschool. My dad and I dug around junkyards and made what we couldn't find. I learned to weld on the frame. It rides like ****... bump steers like a *****... squeeks, creaks and rattles like you'd swear it's gonna fly apart. It's a 300hp beer can on wheels... Now, ask me if I'm worried about the HooDoo Witch killing me.
About ten or twelve years ago, we got into buying and rebuilding wrecked Jap touring bikes (Goldwings and Venture Royales) The first thing I did, after getting one together, was take the thing and run it right up to W.O.T. Flat out as fast as it would go. If I didn't die, it was good enough to sell. The same holds true, here. I'll TRY to break this truck. If I can't... it's golden.
The hotrods of the 40s and 50s led to many types of racing. Which led to inovations and improvements. Now, there's cars turning way over 300 in the quarter. Tech?!?! If every time an idea got tried, it got thrown out at tech, we'd still be posting top speeds of 89mph.
I'm not building this truck to p*** tech or inspection. I'm building it, because I have a couple of ideas, and I want to see the hard truth...
I guess I should have made it clear, in the very first post in this thread, that I only wanted input from people who actually mess up their garage... who actually BUILD some ****... or take their toolbox and spend a day in a junkyard once in awhile, and then say, "What can I build with this stuff?" Being un-traditional IS traditional............

ELRUSTO- The six lugs are for a '70 Chevy truck 12-bolt, that might end up in the HooDoo Witch. $20.00 at the Jefferson swap meet


JOE

 

Well said...........you GO, BOY!