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Front spring and batwing help

Steve Schaefer

New Member
im setting up my front suspension with a transverse spring. I ordered an 4” drop axle from Ron Pope and need to weld the bat wings to it. I already have the spring mounted to the perch. How much do I need to compress the spring to get the batwings in the proper spot. I’ve searched everywhere but can’t seem to find any info on it. Of course my wife says I’m not very smart so maybe I just missed the info lol.
 
Most people add the spring eye to eye center to the shackle center (x 2) and put the bat wings inside to inside that far apart. You should be able to install the spring with no stretching of spring.
 
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It will look something like this (from Speedway Motors Catalog)
Welcome from St Louis!
 
So if I’m understanding right if I have my shackles attached to my spring and the batwings attached to them I should be able to mount the battings to the axle as long as the axle is centered to the frame. My spring is 26” and my shackles are 1 1/2” center. I think I’m way over complicating things.
 
I believe it's 5" longer than the spring eye to eye. You have the shackles AND the spring pivot that bolts to the bat wing.

You might want to to weld the bat wing with an 8 to 10* built in caster angle.
 
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Thank you all for helping!!!! I’ve been into off road for a long time. This is my first street car so it’s a learning curve for me.
 
I agree w/ HenrysT, shackle perch dimension needs to be included. Perch adds about 1" per side so, in this case, 31" total between batwings. My CCR front end uses 29.25" spring w/ 35.25" between batwings.

Not sure what width between drops on Pope axle is but 31" likely puts batwings well inside of that. Given a typical 26.5" frame width, that doesn't leave you as much room when determining shocks angle and mounting positions.

My lower shock mounts are 33.25" apart and uppers are 23.25"
 
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I bought a manual off of total performance along time ago and I’m using that as a guide. My frame dimensions are about the same as their book. I added 1” to the width front and back. I was just getting caught up with sprung verse unsprung weight and didn’t want the front suspension to bind up or worse
 

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