Model A rear spring

[Chickie]

I found a set of model A springs last week. The rear spring is a high arch. Over the weekend we mocked the frame and rear axle together with the rear spring. That spring puts the backend of the car way up in the air (not surprising being a high arch, eh). The plans I am using has the spring perch centered on the axle shaft. Does the spring perch have to be centered on the axle or can I drop the mount to get a lower ride height? The way it is currently set up I have about 5 degrees foward rake. I don't want to lower it very much (maybe 2 inches), mainly want to level the car and not make it look like a Rat Roth cartoon. My son says to bigger front tires on it.

Adrian

 

[Youngster]

Are your spring mounts on the axle on top of the housing or behind it?

There is an artical in the chassis section on setting up a Model A rear spring. That might be of some help to you too.

Ron

 

[Chickie]

Spring perch is mounted behind the axle. I want to make sure I will have no binding problems by lowering the perch.

 

[Youngster]

I assume you are talking about the housing spring mounts. If so, yes you can design a set to mount your spring lower. Another area to look at would be the hieght of your kick and/or where the mount on the rear cross member is located. Another option is to use the model A rear crossmember, (about a 3" drop over a straight crossmember). You also don't need a full stack of leaves in your spring. On a car as light as a T-bucket, the main, the second and the third leaves are the energy absorbing pieces. The rest are basically just spacers. For appearence, leave 2 more leaves in the stack, (see the artical mentioned above).

Ron

 

[Youngster]

Here's apic of an A rear cross member that al-world1 is using in his build.

Ron

 

[Allen]

Here's apic of an A rear cross member that al-world1 is using in his build.

Ron

Hi Ron, I used to see a lot of this form the '50's and '60's. I guess my concern is, as you know, there's two kinds of metal. Of course, the frame was put together with rivets. There's probably not going to be a problem. Just wondering what your thoughts were on this. It has a neat look to it, but if someone came into my shop and wanted me to do it for them, I would have to say I would turn the job down. No disrespect intended for the builder of the car. Just me here. P.S. I also like the look of the springs showing.

 

[Youngster]

If the crossmember is clean from all contaminates such as sand blasted, there should be no problem with the somewhat dissimular metals. There is enough iron content to make excellent fusion possible. Joint design will help with the soundness of this type of set up also. I know you can't see theback side but if you could you would see that the rails are cut to the profile of the cross member, this requires the welds to run vertically and horizontally. Yes this is cloned from years gone by. It worked then just as it works now with some planning.

This was a very good question Allen. Glad you asked.

Ron

 

[all-world1]

Here's apic of an A rear cross member that al-world1 is using in his build.

Ron

Yup, Ron suggested it to me and I think it looks great...the spring flows well from the arch of the crossmember. Welded a section of steel tubing between the rails at the top of the kick to compensate for any lack in strength of that A crossmember.

Now if I could only make more progress since I lost my heated facility this winter and now I'm reduced to menial projects that I can do in the basement like brakes and cleaning up greasy parts etc... good time to suck in a lot of great tips from you guys.

 

[old round fart]

If you are worried about strength, Posies repops the cross members.

 

[Ted Brown]

Channel is channel, not near the same as box tube... and like they said, that spring looks best all out in the open, otherwise it is lost in that cross member... I really like the looks of a T spring, over the A spring, Ya think?