<VV> Leaf Spring

[Tony Underwood]

At 10:17 PM 2/1/2009, Doug Mackintosh wrote:
>It is indeed true of the factory mount. The reason for the 1964 
>suspension changes was to try to reduce oversteering tendency.
>This is done by increasing the front roll stiffness (by adding a 
>roll bar) and decreasing rear roll stiffness (by softening the rear 
>coil springs).
>The leaf spring was added to help support the weight but was mounted 
>so it would pivot at the differential by mounting it in rubber.
>As a result, the spring helps hold up the rear end (if you remove 
>the spring, it will droop) but does not reintroduce roll stiffness.
>I am not sure, but I think the camber compensator behaves differently.




It does indeed.   The camber compensator uses a similar leaf "spring" 
which is a bit shorter than the '64 leaf.   However, the compensator 
leaf does *not* provide any support for the rear of the car and is 
used with the stock rear springs that came with the '60-'63 
cars.   It was supposed to be a sorta "poor man's z-bar" add-on.


The '64 leaf provides more of a z-bar effect than the compensator 
leaf does, and works best with the accompanying front sway bar the 
'64s came with.


Frankly, the camber compensator doesn't work all that well unless you 
lower the rear suspension a bit and let it provide some transition of 
body roll to the outside wheel instead of letting it jack up in a 
tight turn.    It *can* be adjusted (via some tomfoolery) to provide 
some spring-lift support to the rear of the car ala the '64 leaf 
(albeit not a lot) which *will* help it to work better IF you drop 
the height of the rear springs by a coil's length to place some of 
the lift load on the leaf without jacking the rear of the car up, 
which WILL make the tuckunder issue MUCH worse.  If you do this, 
heavy-up on the compensator mount hardware attaching the ends of the 
leaf to the lower control arms.


In short, to make that camber compensator work, you have to tweak the 
car a bit and adding a front sway bar will help.   Lowering the rear 
a little will *really* help.




Or, go find a '64 leaf and coils and add-on.   Don't forget the front 
sway bar...




tony..