and yes i looked in the archives, i'm sure this info there somewhere, i got tired of reading through them and just want an anwser i have a 2.25" 8 leaf model A high arc rear spring, uninstalled it measures 40.5" centre to centre on the eyes and approx 17.25" tall when stood up on the counter from counter top to the top of the spring. what i need to know is what is the width that the spring perches are mounted? what would be the spread width? i will have an 1.5" shackle on either end. also once the spring spread to the mounting dimension, what will the unweighted spring height be. i need this dimension to calculate the amount to Z my frame. thanks much
perhaps i should change my post...here goes... could somebody crawl under their A and measure the compressed height and eye to eye width of a high arc rear spring? i believe the rear perch width id 49.5", is this correct? thanks
I thought I replied to you yesterday, but it looks like it didn't take. This computer stuff is too high tech for me. Anyway, I installed a buggy spring in my T-Bucket. It is 2" wide, 17" high and 42" eye to eye (centerline). Shackle are 1-1/2" each. So total with shackles is 45". My spring perch mounts on the axle are 48" apart. I made a spring spreader to stretch the spring, or if you have a pet gorilla you could use him to help. With the spring installed, the height of the spring dropped to 13-3/4" and now the spring eyes are 45" eye to eye. You have to stretch the spring to get the proper 45 degree angle on the spring shackles under load, otherwise the car will tend to sway from side to side if the shackles are hanging straight down with the load on them. You can add or remove leaves to adjust ride height or add a spacer. Hope this helps. Tex-T
The measurement from mounting eye to mounting eye for the axle side will be approximately 49 inches. This has been covered here in not-so-obvious places and people have come up with similar dimensions +/- 1/4" to +/- 1/2". When you stretch the spring to mount it, the shackles will be STRAIGHT OUT with NO WEIGHT. With the spring loaded with it's maximum driving weight, the shackles SHOULD be pointing at an angle towards the ground of approximately 45-degrees. If the shackles are straight down (or even reversed) then you either have too much weight or too light of a spring. Adding leaves to the lower middle of the pack will help adjust this. If the shackles are pointing closer to straight OUT (parallel to the ground) then you have too heavy of a spring and need to remove some from the lower middle leaves in the pack. Make sense? Hope that helps!
Sorry! Just saw this revision. Correct! 49.5" now subtract 3" for the shackles (if there is no load) and you have your width. Otherwise a little trig using sin, cos, tangent and 45 degrees as your angle will get it for you with the load on it. As for the height, I can't remember and my car is blown apart, but there IS another thread here on this. I'll see if I can find it. It was like 7-1/2", or something. You're trying to calculate your kick-up, aren't you?
I thought I replied to you yesterday, but it looks like it didn't take. This computer stuff is too high tech for me. Anyway, I installed a buggy spring in my T-Bucket. It is 2" wide, 17" high and 42" eye to eye (centerline). Shackle are 1-1/2" each. So total with shackles is 45". My spring perch mounts on the axle are 48" apart. I made a spring spreader to stretch the spring, or if you have a pet gorilla you could use him to help. With the spring installed, the height of the spring dropped to 13-3/4" and now the spring eyes are 45" eye to eye. You have to stretch the spring to get the proper 45 degree angle on the spring shackles under load, otherwise the car will tend to sway from side to side if the shackles are hanging straight down with the load on them. You can add or remove leaves to adjust ride height or add a spacer. Hope this helps. Tex-T
Here's a thread I started in 2007 http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=184535&highlight=model+spring I've got a pretty heavy car, so I ended up adding some leaves. Looking for the dimensions on the height for you.
Here's another: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=143915&highlight=model+spring&showall=1 Going to have to actually look at my AutoCAD drawings to figure out what I learned.
The height you are looking for is going to be around 11.5" from spring center to the top of the spring leaves. I think mine had 9 or 10 leaves when I measured it. So it will vary, obviously. From axle mounting eye center to the top of the spring pack it was around 10.44".
Here... Picture is worth a thousand words. Obviously my spring mounting position was just slightly larger than yours, but dimensions won't change much.
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