Hot Rods Softening the ride on a straight axle

So, after driving the 35 for 750 miles this past weekend, I noticed a few things.
One of them was how harsh the ride was on my 35 front suspension.

Here's the setup.
Chassis Engineering 4" dropped axle
Chassis Engineering matched shocks
Split bones the width of the x member
Posies reversed eye spring
CE Sway bar
15" steel front wheels

It drives out ok as long as the road is smooth, but if there is a break in the concrete or a bump at a bridge or transition, it makes you cringe.
I thought about replacing the front shocks with Bilsteins to see if that would soften it up a bit.

Any ideas?

 

What's your tire pressure? Mine has to be down to 20 psi to ride decent.

 

I would also look at tire pressure (easiest and fastest to check), then would look at where you are with suspension travel as relates to your bump stops. - EM

 

I could lower my tire pressure a bit. It's not a bias ply tire. It's a radial.

 

How about a picture of the spring

 

Of? Me without my pants on? You're not tricking me a third time......

 

Yeah tire pressure will make a difference with that sort of thing, it's finding that balance between easy to steer and rides like shit lol

 

Not a great pic, but....
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-legrange-produce-tribute-truck-build.936696/page-3

 

Good call. The spring appears to have lost all of its arch in 750 miles. Nice. I won't buy another Posies spring.



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maybe check with Jenny Craig for help with possible cause - Ha!

 

The frustrating part is all of the problems I have had on this build have been manufacturers failures.

 

sent you a pm-lots of leaves! Had a spring like that sag 1 1/2" before the car ever turned a tire. Made mine of a new main leaf and then Ford springs for the rest-8-9 leaves

 

It's hard to see, but the shackles are cocked assbackwards wrong in these pics. However ,,, Also the spring should be pulling the shackles at 180* in this set up and there should be no way possible to get them that way unless the spring is too long.

It appears that it is indeed too long

 

This is set up right, rides great.
You can see the shackles are showing a balanced spring rate to load. You also can see the amount of arch and it's not much.

This spring needs quite a bit of preload flattening to get it mounted.

 

Here's another

 

X2--if the shackles aren't at a 45 with the car loaded it won't function but sure looks like a lot of leaves.

 

I'll get it up in the lift this weekend. It's hard to see in the dark garage


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At one point we had them flipped. We unloaded them later. Not sure when those pics were taken. Pre or post.


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Need the spring loaded, A 4 post lift would be ok. A 2 post or stands would not get us a good representation.

 

I know at least one spring manufacture out there has some bad info and measurements and has WAY to much arch in their springs.

 

That flip is the tell tail sign the spring is too long. The shackles should be pulled horizontal, and when pulled horizontal there is ZERO chance they could ever flip.

 

I apologize ahead of time for the crappy pic.


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The shackle looks fine. Check the shock length and also, make sure the swaybar isn't hitting the shock mount. You could try removing the shocks and driving it, that would at least eliminate the shocks being the culprit.

 

X2 above--good info but still alot of leaves to me

 

I've used original Ford springs on most of the builds I've done over the last 40 years.
I'm always amazed that people choose to ditch original Ford Parts, that Henry paid smart engineers to develop, and switch them out for some new stuff that some hot rod guy came up with, just because it's new ( but not always better ! )

 

I used a later axle on mine. It was a 35, I added a set of 40 bones and had no factory leaf for a narrowed 46" axle.

 

Looks damn near vertical to me

 

When you split the bones did you get the spring hanger bent straight enough? That could cause some binding. Just a thought.

 

Yeah, its good. I think I may build a hybrid spring out of the Posies and the CE.

 

I used the CE spring with there axel, and it rides good.