Has anybody here found or used a rear quarter elliptical spring kit from somebody besides Posies? I have been looking at possibly going with this type of suspension in my model A rpu with a quickchange and it looks like it would work best with a model A frame and be able to allow it to sit lower. I did some searching and posted on another thread already and didn't really find any answers other than some home made stuff with mixed opinions. TIA
A local builder here in Indy ( Tom Culbertson) has been using a trailer spring from Tractor supply and making his own mounts etc for some time. I own a Model A with the posie kit ( rear) and a set of 32 rails that just rides terrible !!!! Tom built me a 30 Chevy roadster with the tractor supply set up that rode very good...
I had a local spring maker make a set for me copied from a photo with my dimensions. cost me less than getting a set of posies from the states. About 180nz$.(about 150us$) 5 leaves in each.
First time I built a 32 roadster chassis back in 1984 using 1/4 elliptics I cut a 40 front spring in half, drilled new spring bolt holes and built my own brackets. I used the springs as bottom bars and triangulated 1 inch bars on top of the rear end to the frame. Ran the shocks forward at about 30 degrees. I drove this car about 40 thousand miles and it worked great. I see this car almost every year at the LARS and it now has 150,000 on the same suspension with no problems.
We built our own setup in the mid 80s and used Pinto rear leaves cut off 4" in front of the spring pin bolt, used the rear 1/2 with a shackle and wishbones to locate the axle in a roadster, rode fantastic! I would do it again in the right application for sure. I have seen several others and some use the late 70s Mopar rear spring as it has a unique oval spring eye hole and uses no shackle.
Look at Malcolms Model A roadster thread he has awesome pics of the 1/4 eliptical setup. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=543427&highlight=malcolm
I used the heavier of the two Posie's quarter elliptical spring kits. Hopefully it doesn't ride as rough as GMC BUBBA's Model A ... Will hopefully know in a few months when I get the car on the road. Right now, without all of the weight on/in the car the springs DO seem rather firm. I guess, if the car does ride rough, I could try removing one of the leaves. Will report back when I get the car running/driving. Malcolm
We used the rear springs from a 1959 Austin Healy bugeye sprite. You can buy them new. They are 130 lb springs. Perfect for the rod my students are building. You can go to my profile and see the photos. There are a number of photos of the rear suspension set up the students build from scratch...they also built the frame and most of the fitments from scratch.
I would like to see some pics of how some of you have come up with mounting a modified leaf w/o a mounting eye to the spring pocket. After cutting a leaf in half and redrilling it for the new spring bolt, what have you come up with for a lower mounting plate?
check out Pinkee's Rod Shopp's web site. They have used quarter elliptics on a few hot rods. There are some pretty photos of the set ups.
I put them in a box. Here's a pic of the front of a car my students did a couple of years ago. 53 Chevy truck springs inside a sectioned 2X3X.188 frame rail. Worked great.