Thoughts on inverted springs SOA

[dieselcruiserhead]

I was thinking of designing/building a set of leafs for a 60 series SOA that was purposely built/designed to be inverted. Many vehicles use this design from the factory, Ford pickups, etc...

First part/design thought was to use two main leafs from a 60 spring pack and then use long soft add-a-leafs to build the rest of the pack so it would be strong, should not yield too much axle wrap, be relatively thin, and most importantly would provide relatively low high in the SOA position. If I started having issues with the Toyota main leafs I was thinking of ordering a main leaf/two from Alcan...

Thoughts??

 

[Mace]

No reason it can't be done IMHO Andre. I just do not know how long the springs will last in that setup.

You basicaly want the flex of a SOA with a lower than 5" lift right? The stock ford springs were pretty limited when it comes to suspension flex. Going from positive to negative arch a lot is pretty hard on leaves. HAve you talked to the guys at Alcan about it?

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

Well, as usual, I wanted to do it on my own "aka on the cheap." There is a really good local spring maker called AAA down in Salt Lake City. It crossed my mind to start with even flat springs. I am concerned about the Toyota main leafs but I have put them through hell before and never broken one (anything is possible though) and I have two sets before I was planning to resort to Alcan I have a 60 I am considering acquiring for DDer/overland use as yet another crackpot idea (it is literally changing 2 times a week) as a method of getting back into a cruiser while I get so little done on my project 55. Having it be super flexy is not that important IMO (but it should have plenty of droop regardless). So these were my thoughts...

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

Also, the reason I want SOA is because I prefer it and also didn't want to spend a ton on big 4-5" springs. I also have never really like super arched springs for some reason, especially once I had done a couple SOA conversions and how easy and well they work...

 

[Waggoner5]

I wanted a similar situation with my 62 and started with OME springs and dearched them. They have been on my truck for 5 years now and have not sagged much at all. I also did a set for Exiled(Henry) and his are still working well under the Cummins.

 

[iron_giant]

I wanted a similar situation with my 62 and started with OME springs and dearched them. They have been on my truck for 5 years now and have not sagged much at all. I also did a set for Exiled(Henry) and his are still working well under the Cummins.

When you de-arched the OME's did you leave enough arch in them so they would ride flat under the weight of the vehicle or did you de-arch them so that they were flat at rest? (not under any weight at all)

 

[Waggoner5]

I arched them to be flat when the vehicle is at rest on all 4 with a typical load. It was quite a bit of work as the springs had to be taken apart and done 1 at a time to make sure they were exactly the same. I did the fronts first then the rears.

 

[lowenbrau]

I think the de-arched emus are the way to go. At least it was when they were made in Australia. I'm not sure the Belton steel is as good. I added some coils on top of the flat factory springs in my heavy BJ74 (same rear leafs as 60s) and with an additional leaf they barely do the job. I'm not sure its worth the hassle to make leafs work though. It seems like four linking on airbags is a better option for a rig that sees that sees a lot of load and tries to be a wheeling and expo truck at the same time.

 

[ntsqd]

GM leaf sprung 4WD Suburbans & trucks also start flat and bump travel to inverted. I dumped those ASAP as the ride was terrible with only 1.5" of bump travel.

As has been mentioned, leaves don't like going from one arch to the other, tends to break them rather rapidly. The counter point, however, is that on Jav's desert race truck he takes his Deavers way, way past flat and he was just telling me two nights ago that he's gotten 4 seasons out of those springs. (They are building replacements as I type this.) That is exceptional life span considering the abuse heaped on them.

Was it me, I'd leave it SUA, go reversed shackles and build a set of really, really long leaves with the center pins placed to put the axles where they should be. Make the front portion of the springs essentially a trailing arm and do most of the springing with the long rear section. Then you can have the ride quality and the ride height desired.

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

There is a little more room with 60s because the axles were originally above the axle. Even lightly inverted there is a little more room than your standard set up. I do agree those main leaves will get trashed, so you guys have me strongly rethinking it. But is is something I'm still considering. If it backfires then really no harm lost. I started looking at pics. Henry's rig of course, looks good but I am still looking for something a little smaller. Possibly capable of running 35's at most... So that is my logic... I do think a good strongly designed inverted lift spring could be "the s***' if you ask me

 

[Mace]

Or just cut the fenders for more room.

My 60 is running 35's with a OME 2.5" lift..

 

[freds40]

I would just do your SOA with the factory leaf pack as it. If you put some thought into it, you can pretty easily do a SOA that would end up with 1-2" of lift over a stock SUA setup. This was my original plan but with my tire choice, I wouldn't have been able to make the tires fit on the back end without mutilating the sheetmetal around the back doors.

This also makes it really easy when a set of springs do finally wear out. Just get another stock set and throw them in.

 

[ntsqd]

For the record, I don't think your plan is a bad one. It's not what I would do, but it's not my truck to drive. Since you're obviously aware of the downsides why not give it a try? The worst that can happen is that you'll have to re-think it and do something different down the road. I'm betting that given the knowns that you'll be doubly on guard about main leaf cracks so a tragic failure would be that much more remote.

Thinking on it, what would prevent you from inverting each leaf of the pack and then reassembling them in the proper order? Instead of compressing the spring more flat you'd be compressing the springs more arched. I don't know if that has ever been done, but I'm failing to see any problem with it.

 

[lowenbrau]

Flipping all the leafs would give you a pretty strongly reversed arch but when I was fist looking into really low rise springovers I did briefly consider flipping the main and Military wrap and then having them re-arched. I figured that with frenched hangers you could end up with a 2" lift s/o if you really wanted to.

 

[ntsqd]

I am thinking stock springs with this. I don't think that it would work out well with a 'lift' spring unless it is a very low lift.
Anyway, FFT......

 

[lovetoski]

Or just cut the fenders for more room.

My 60 is running 35's with a OME 2.5" lift..

Body lift? Shackle reversal? Pics?

 

[Mace]

Body lift? Shackle reversal? Pics?

Nope, nope..

 

[hicruise55]

Following this!

Have thought much about it myself. You cannot beat the clearance or flex of a SOA. When I outboarded my hangers for the 60 axle I thought about frenching. Reversing springs and packs...hmm...?

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

I found this old pic of my former HJ60 relatively shortly after doing my first spring over way back in the day. I had gotten bad info from the Internet about using "the softest springs you can find" so I built a piss-poor, wallowing spring over. And naturally the springs started to arch quickly (the rears also started to "S"). These are meaty 33x12.5's... So basically I'm thinking along these lines

 

[Waggoner5]

Andre, my 61 had stock springs with 30k miles SOA, and they worked great. They still have not sagged. They did sit very flat SOA.