Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Hi all,
I was wondering if anyone knows of some good places that do leaf spring resetting & tempering in Melbourne and the outer suburbs. Had one quote so far and it was $215 a pair! ... almost the price of leaf springs new!

better of buying new leaves...will last longer...

I have found ram springs in thomastown very good.

joeblow wrote:better of buying new leaves...will last longer...

i couldn't find any off the shelf springs to suit my truck, most i found to be too stiff. i'm all for lightened stockies with longer mains and not too much set. seem to get about 2-3 years out of them.

My leaves are just over a year old and I'm looking into playing around with them... Did some calcs of their spring rate and they are WAAAY too over sprung so I'm going to pull out a few, trim them to an even spacing, chamfer the ends and get them reset to a higher free camber and tempered. I just need to find somewhere that does the resetting and tempering at a good price.

Cheers for the tip muel75 will give them a call. Anyone else know of other places??

I got some valiant springs reset, and a leaf added for $180 from strutfit in dandenong. How did you work out your leaf spring rates and stuff? any information etc on leaves would be a great help. Would love to learn, at the moment i'm just mixing, matching and testing the results.

cheers

Isuzurover put me onto a book called the "Leaf Spring Design Manual" by the Society of Automotive Engineers. I found a copy at a Monash Uni down here in Melbourne and it is incredibly comprehensive.

Anyway Isuzurover has produced some very informative posts on modding your leaf springs:

http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/phpBB2/vi ... gs&start=0

http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/PHP_Modul ... hp?t=18823

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/series-3/4881 ... rings.html

But just as a brief summary of what he has said.

The equation to use is:
r = 8.E.n.w.t^3 / 3.L^3 * SF

where:
r is the spring rate (lb/in)
w is the width of the leaves (in)
n is the number of leaves
t is the thickness of the leaves (in)
L is the length of the main leaf, flat, eye to eye (in)
E is the youngs modulus of steel 3.05x10^7 (lb.in^-2)
SF is a fitting factor you use to make the equation produce reasonable results for square edged leaves you use 1.1 to 1.3. One way to work out the SF is to use the standard spring specs and change SF until you get a spring rate that matches the stock values of your packs... If not I think Isuzu used 1.13 but this is probably different for every leaf configuration.

One thing that is worth knowing however, is that leaves that are cut squarely are the least efficient design (cost driven design). By chamfering the square edge (cutting them at 45 deg) you can improve the stress distribution of the leaves....

Anyway, read the info that isuzurover has posted and it should answer most of your questions. I've only read up on the stuff and am about to put the theory into practice whereas he has actually done it.

So does anyone else have any other places to recommend??

How about a 110" chassis, for the price it'll cost for resetting your springs , Mmmmm coils

If I had somewhere to put it that would be so incredibly tempting. I need to buy a workshop or something, I'm really craving starting again, this time from scratch.

How about a rangie chassis with all suspension components and housing for 3 slabs of beer

Gee Stirling
Thought you would of asked on aulro first

Spicer Springs in Mountain Highway, Bayswater.

9720 0809

cheers
Tony

cloughy wrote:How about a rangie chassis with all suspension components and housing for 3 slabs of beer

Soo tempting! But I don't have anywhere to put it... I suppose that is what you get for living in the suburbs eh?

TRobbo wrote:Gee Stirling
Thought you would of asked on aulro first

Spicer Springs in Mountain Highway, Bayswater.

9720 0809

cheers
Tony

Thanks tony!

what's with the bloody signature pic. You may have noticed no one else has them here for a good reason.

be careful with resettting springs if they are older springs with a history you don't know you may find they wont take to resetting too well and you'll end up where you are now in a couple of months. What are you hoping to achieve by getting them reset? Why not get new ones, you said there aren't any new ones to suit but what exactly do they need to suit?

grimbo wrote:what's with the bloody signature pic. You may have noticed no one else has them here for a good reason.

be careful with resettting springs if they are older springs with a history you don't know you may find they wont take to resetting too well and you'll end up where you are now in a couple of months. What are you hoping to achieve by getting them reset? Why not get new ones, you said there aren't any new ones to suit but what exactly do they need to suit?

That better? I actually hadn't noticed that no one is using an image in their signature, but I find a reason why this is the case? BBCode is enabled for signature entries.

I purchased the springs I have from new, so I know their history. They are only about a year and a couple of months old now so it should be fine.

What do I hope to achieve? A reduced spring rate and increased travel (by increasing the free camber when getting them reset).

Don't worry about Grimbo, it makes him feel all etuff when he can tell someone off, yes he could have politely mentioned that those pretty sigs aren't meant to be used on OL, but instead, likes to be a rude crunt, cause he knows all the rules here, spending more time than most here......he's our very own forum gestapo

Wait until you ask a question without searching

Thing is... I just did a search on "signature" and the only posts that talk about not having a signature pic is grimbo telling people off. He even uses the same line ("You may have noticed no one else has them here for a good reason."). It isn't in the rules as far as I can see (maybe I didn't look in the right place).

Ah whatever, off it goes, I couldn't be bothered getting into a text arguement over it.

whatever cloughy hates me and doesn't ever let a chance go by where he can't remind people

Ok so you want better travel out of them. No sure resetting existing springs will do that. Removing over load leaves etc will or mixing and matching your existing springs with some others might as well. Are they heavy duty springs setup for carrying loads in the ute? Do you carry weight in the tray or is it usually empty? Have your old springs failed in anyway due to sagging etc or are they just the wrong spring rate

When I purchased the leaf packs, I did request them to be light duty, but I don't think that is what I got, since you would try to push the car down on the springs and it simply wouldn't budge. And that was with already one leaf removed from the packs front and rear.

So after doing some reading I found some stuff that Isuzurover posted up and on doing some calcs I found that the car is over sprung. So I pulled out another leaf from the rear and it made a huge difference in softening it up. However since it is a spring, if you have a the same load and a lower spring rate, the car sits lower, so I need to get the springs reset to bring the height back up. It would appear that I could even get away with taking an additional leaf out of the rear still.

I haven't touched the front yet, mainly because my U bolts won't have enough thread to be able to tighten when I remove a leaf. But it is still the same case on the front. Rock solid, and it isn't because they are seized since I oil the leaves. Judging by the spring rate that I got from the equation above, it would seem like I could get away with removing upto 3 leaves from the front.

Being a single cab ute with an alloy tray, alloy body and alloy v8, the car is very light.

I will rarely carry load on the back, and what I do in those cases is I fit bump stop spacers to prevent the leaves being held compressed.

If you have a read of the links that I put up up a few posts back, you will see where all of this has been discussed.

On a side note, I should probably change the title of this thread since it seems like the topic is changing.

stirlsilver wrote:Thing is... I just did a search on "signature" and the only posts that talk about not having a signature pic is grimbo telling people off. He even uses the same line ("You may have noticed no one else has them here for a good reason."). It isn't in the rules as far as I can see (maybe I didn't look in the right place).

Ah whatever, off it goes, I couldn't be bothered getting into a text arguement over it.

yep that's Grimbo

I don't hate you Grimbo, but christ you seem like a wanker when you tell everyone off likt they all spend heaps of time here and should know the rules a polite reply would have been ample

Sorry can;t help, there is a local bloke here that does shit hot work, resetting springs, but he's a real asshole to deal with, bit like Geoff from JacMac

grimbo wrote: Ok so you want better travel out of them. No sure resetting existing springs will do that.

Yep it will.

Steve.

Gwagensteve wrote:

grimbo wrote: Ok so you want better travel out of them. No sure resetting existing springs will do that.

Yep it will.

Steve.

Haha! Love it! Short. And to the Point!

If they are good quality springs, resetting AND tempering and they will be good as new - or near enough so you don't notice. Problem is that all the toyota owners etc have about 20+ options for aftermarket springs at good prices.

I was wondering when you would sniff this thread out ben

mule75 wrote:I have found ram springs in thomastown very good.

x2. i went there on the recommendation of muley here, and he did a great job. knows his stuff inside and out.

my rears are still good, and they are 5 years old. my fronts got swapped out for 55 fronts to stretch the wheelbase, but the fronts were still good when they were removed.