[Spits] Rear Spring

[Joe Curry]

Greg,
After reviewing all your photos, I have come to the following conclusions:

1. You have used spacers that are too large in diameter and in thickness.
This is causing the leaves to remain spaced apart and not allowing the car
to settle to it's designed negative camber stance.
2.  With the KYB shocks, the gas charging within them is adding to the
effect because they are taking load off the spring.

You might have the thing correct itself over a short period of time
depending on what the spacers are made of.  Because they are larger than the
dimples in the spring leaves, they might slip out and let the leaves come
back together as they should be.  If they are made of a material that will
abrade, they may wear down in short order so that the leaves are together as
they should be.

Please bear in mind that what unknowing people think is not correct is
entirely normal for late Spits.  Triumph increased the length of the rear
axles by an inch on each side without changing the length of the spring.
The effect was to radically change the camber to a negative condition and
that had the desired effect of helping dame the tendency of the rear end to
tuck the unloaded wheel in a hard turn.

I hope this dissertation is useful.

Joe


-----Original Message-----
From: spitfires-bounces at autox.team.net
[mailto:spitfires-bounces at autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Greg Stull
Sent: Sunday, November 08, 2009 7:11 PM
To: Spitfire Group
Subject: [Spits] Rear Spring

Hi,

I finished putting in the disks in the rear leaf spring Saturday. Sure made
an
improvement. The rear of the car now sits higher and the rear wheels don't
lean in as much.

Went on a ride this afternoon with my Dad to give it a test with two people
in
the car. It came down a little but it wasn't anything like before. I even
think it rides better. We took the Spit on some rough roads too.

Went down to show a friend who owns a Spitfire and he could tell the
difference as soon as I turned on his street. He couldn't believe the
difference. Now, he wished he would done it to his old leaf spring instead
of
buying a new one.

Now the next test is going to be time.

Greg
1978 Spitfire 1500

Here's a link to some pictures I took while working on the leaf spring.

http://picasaweb.google.com/gastul76/SpitfireSpring?feat=directlink
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