lower a spring

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2015 10:39 am

Rodney -

Are you looking for this look?

If not how about this? :lol:

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2015 11:42 am

Is that your new ride Dick? Yes, the top pic is what I'm looking for, sans rake.

@ Steve. You can go about 2" in lowering the mustang before you start running into trouble.

I've tried to do some research and not much out there in regard to over compressing springs. I've looked at my press and the spring and I've decided this is less than a stellar idea. Part of the reason is if I am successful bending over the pig tail, I stand the chance of making it "elliptical" and not seating flat against the pad. That said, money is spent and new springs are on the way. Springs were on sale on the American muscle site, so that's good. This way I can also have a good set of springs to possibly sell once I'm done w/ the upgrade.

All I need to do now is have the rear diff rebuilt "again". Have the parts, just waiting on my help and a free weekend.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2015 2:09 pm

The still picture above is of a car just like mine. The drag race picture is from the Ford video bragging about 1/4 mile capability.

Here is a pic of me in my new ride. Taken outside the rail yard where it spent a week starting New Years Eve.

Scott Johnson · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2015 2:36 pm

Why are you afraid of using heat? Seems like you can just put a hot torch on the spring near the pigtail, get it red hot and bend it. You aren't putting that much heat in the rest of the spring. If you kill the steel on a dead coil it won't suddenly become more dead.

It will ruin the pretty finish on the springs.

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2015 2:38 pm

niiccee.... look forward to seeing it out on course....

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2015 3:15 pm

Scott Johnson wrote:

Why are you afraid of using heat? Seems like you can just put a hot torch on the spring near the pigtail, get it red hot and bend it. You aren't putting that much heat in the rest of the spring. If you kill the steel on a dead coil it won't suddenly become more dead.

It will ruin the pretty finish on the springs.

heating up the coil will somewhat act like a heat sink and heat up the surrounding area. That changes the annealing and spring characteristics of the metal and can possibly introduce a failure point. The last thing I need is a broken spring to ruin a run.... On top of that, if the pig tail breaks, then there's nothing to center the spring on the perch and that would create bad mojo. I'm not willing to take that risk...

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2015 6:49 pm

I am not a metallurgist, so take this with a grain of salt...

RodneyWright wrote:

My thought was to over compress the pigtail into the spring so it sits more even w/ the last full loop of the spring.

If I understand you are looking to bend (plastic deformation) the last few winds of the spring to shorten it, but you don't want to do it via heat. My concern here is that given whatever hardening and tempering that you do, that bending it purely mechanically might make it brittle in that one area or it might fracture instead of bend? I think using heat would be safer, but either way you are going to likely impact the spring rate in an unpredictable way (hard to get consistency left to right).

RodneyWright wrote:

I have a press, but don't know if it's big enough to handle this.

Sounds dangerous. Compressing springs with a spring compressor is dangerous enough. Trying to do it in a way that you bend just part of the coil seems like a quick way to get hurt. Especially if you are cobbling together tools to do that.

As others have suggested... I would just buy new springs that have the right rate and height.

Richard

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Tue Feb 03, 2015 8:22 pm

Richard Casto wrote:

As others have suggested... I would just buy new springs that have the right rate and height.

Richard

agreed.... springs ordered...

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2015 9:28 am

Richard Casto wrote:

RodneyWright wrote:

I have a press, but don't know if it's big enough to handle this.

Sounds dangerous. Compressing springs with a spring compressor is dangerous enough. Trying to do it in a way that you bend just part of the coil seems like a quick way to get hurt. Especially if you are cobbling together tools to do that.

As others have suggested... I would just buy new springs that have the right rate and height.

Richard

Rodney was trying to think of a German way to do it. You know, make it complicated so it will fail later. :mrgreen:

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2015 9:39 am

Vincent Keene wrote:

Richard Casto wrote:

RodneyWright wrote:

I have a press, but don't know if it's big enough to handle this.

Sounds dangerous. Compressing springs with a spring compressor is dangerous enough. Trying to do it in a way that you bend just part of the coil seems like a quick way to get hurt. Especially if you are cobbling together tools to do that.

As others have suggested... I would just buy new springs that have the right rate and height.

Richard

Rodney was trying to think of a German way to do it. You know, make it complicated so it will fail later. :mrgreen:

Well, if the failure does happen, you can take the GM route...cover it up and become subject to a Justice Dept criminal investigation after finally admitting to knowing about the failures and deaths that resulted.

Oh, but not before being taken over and bailed out by the government and negotiating a deal to limit liability for anything prior to the bailout contract date. :evil:

George Bright · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2015 6:02 pm

200 lbs. of play sand in the trunk should help get the tail down. And it is cheaper than springs. :lol:

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Wed Feb 04, 2015 8:21 pm

George Bright wrote:

200 lbs. of play sand in the trunk should help get the tail down. And it is cheaper than springs. :lol:

and would undoubtedly help that mustang rotate in a hard transition! Good thinking!

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Thu Feb 05, 2015 2:05 pm

springs arrived today, so now I have a mini weekend project. Fingers crossed this will give me a better ride height. These were the closest spring rates vs lowering I could justify spending money on. Fingers crossed...

Rob Keehner · **Posted:** Fri Feb 06, 2015 8:49 pm

Are you using rubber spring pads on them? Removing or using thinner ones is a good way to adjust ride height.

Arthur McDonald · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 1:54 am **Posts:** 2052

George Bright wrote:

200 lbs. of play sand in the trunk should help get the tail down. And it is cheaper than springs. :lol:

Well, you know what they say about shifting sands. Pouring concrete into the spare tire well would solve that problem and cause some others.

Good looking car Dick! Now be sure to break it in very gently, for 20,000 miles at the very least

THSCC Forums

lower a spring

Who is online