Transverse Leaf Springs ???

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Independent suspensions were developed when roads were terrible and feedback from ruts and bumps from one side of the car to the other was quite detrimental for comfort and control.

Model T Fords used a traverse leaf spring with a wishbone to allow large excursions at the wheel. As roads improved, owners split the wishbone to allow lowering, then 4-bars to reduce caster changes. Later Ford used a twin I-beam axle to reduce camber changes.

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

There's no practical way to have a live axle on a front wheel drive either...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Dion_tube


http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/millers-at-milwaukee.278788/page-2

[user removed]

^^^^^^ Looks like one of Harry Miller's racers.

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?...&hsimp=yhs-003

regards
mech

[hat_man]

It was more of an interesting thought. Kind of a "What if..." thing. I wonder just how much weight we are talking about though. The bed on a step side is pretty light. Two people can lift it off easily. I guess there is probably some lateral movement to be contended with. In my mind I was seeing an inverted spring arrangement parallel to the rear axle and mounted to or held in place by some sort of piece spanning the frame. Something very simple, even though something like this probably isn't simple to begin with. I was trying to thing of a way to make a long boat tail on a small pick-up. The biggest obstruction was the rear wheels being so far outboard. Moving them inboard far enough to not have to box around them was going to involve removing the rear leafs and finding a way to replace them to support the bed. A friend is trying to build a "race truck" (at least that's what I think he's trying to do) and asked me if I knew anything about Rangers because I have one. That's what got the imagination working.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by freebeard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Dion_tube


http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/millers-at-milwaukee.278788/page-2

If you consider the way a modern FWD car is packaged, you'd want some very compelling reasons for trying to fit anything like that.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by hat_man

It was more of an interesting thought. Kind of a "What if..." thing. I wonder just how much weight we are talking about though.

If you have a 55-59 Chevy pickup you can buy a replacement chassis designed for Corvette C5-C6 front and rear suspensions.

Probably better off looking for other ways to save weight though. A transverse leaf is going to be almost twice as long as a pair of normal leafs, so once you account for axle location, you'll probably end up adding weight.

[hat_man]

Just to continue the pipe dream some more....

The leafs on my truck are roughly 60" long. The frame is only about 36" wide. It's hard to imagine a set of leafs 10' long. The foggy dream wasn't to reduce weight though. It was more to create some sort of boat-tail bed.

I was hypothetically thinking something like this in conjunction with the standard shock arrangement.

If you haven't figured out already I like to think outside the box

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by OP

I was trying to thing of a way to make a long boat tail on a small pick-up. The biggest obstruction was the rear wheels being so far outboard... A friend is trying to build a "race truck" (at least that's what I think he's trying to do) and asked me if I knew anything about Rangers because I have one.

That's helpful. Have you calculated the amount needed to tuck the wheels in enough to clear The Template line? If it's 2-4" you may be able to achieve that with the wheel offset. Otherwise, you'd need a narrower axle. Consult Suspension Measurements for examples. From there:

Rear Axle Measurements
MEASURED ACROSS WHEEL MOUNTING SURFACE

56 1/2" 71-77 Ford Maverick 8",

57" 71-74 V-8 Mavericks 8", All '75-77 6's & 8's Maverick 5 Lug 8", 49-51 Ford, 57-59 Ford 9"

57 1/4" 64 1/2 - 65 Mustang

...

59" 68-83 Corvette

60" 55-64 Chevy Car, 67-69 Camaro, 64-67 Chevelle, 68-74 Nova, 71-73 Mustang/Cougar, 84-95 Corvette

The Model A frame is 40" wide at the rear crossmember, so that could be used. But a traverse spring requires a torque tube or ladder as in the pic you attached on the left. Consider a 4-bar Watts Linkage and coil-over set-up instead. This is in a Chevy S-10:


http://www.hotrod.com/cars/featured/1501-inside-the-quickest-street-vehicle-on-earth/

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by hat_man

I can only imagine what steel leafs weigh. That and losing two of them and replacing it with a single one.

The leaf spings on my suburban weigh some where around 80 to 100 pounds each.

Good thing about the leaf springs is they disperse the weight of the body to 4 points on the frame. Then if you have coil over helper shocks like I do then you have 6 points of load distribution.

Then if you go to a singe leaf spring you are putting a double point load where there is no existing vehicle frame.
So any weight saving just got added back by having to use a heaver single leaf spring and from adding an additional frame cross member.

[Frank Lee]

Just start the taper after the axle.

[hat_man]

That's kind of where this whole pipe dream started freebeard. I would need quite a bit. Close to 5". There's only about 2" to the edge of the leafs but almost 6"-7" total to the edge of the bed tub. IIRC the rear ends in the pre-1994 Rangers are 1" narrower on each side (2" overall then) than the '97 like mine. That coupled with an offset rim gets me somewhere in the 4"-5" range. Might be just enough to tuck them out of the template line.

This is still just an idea floating around in the back of my warped mind though. Will probably never see the light of day.