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MG MGA - Ride Height

Hello All,
I bought new rear leaf springs some five years ago. After five years, the car still sits too high.
I read somewhere on this Web if you take the bottom most leaf spring and put it on the top of the others it will reduce the overall ride height.
Questions;
How much will this reduce the ride height?
Is this a major event or can this be done in afternoon?

Ray
Ray Ammeter

Ray, probably won't do much, it is way too short.
But if you do it, it won't take so long as the bottom leaf is not clipped like the others. There is a problem with new spring suppliers selling overarched springs. In my case, the top one had cracked, so I took the new top leaf only and added it to the rest of the old leafs to get a decent arch. Your evidence says that new springs don't "set" that much.
Art
A Pearse

Ray, if your idea doesn't work you can try taking them to a spring shop to have them re-arched.
Mark J Michalak

Art,
Over five years I don't think they settled any. The first year I installed them I put five sand bags in the trunk. Each were 50 pounds. My notes say the distance from the bottom of the bumper to the ground decreased by 2 inches. It went from 15 3/4 inches to 13 3/4 inches. The car sat with those five sand bags in the trunk for over four months in the Winter.
When I took them out, it came back up to 15 3/4 inches.

Ray
Ray Ammeter

Ray, my belief is that springs onlt "set" if they are exposed to excess loads, such as hard bumps, where the metal is deformed beyond the elastic limit. This is common to all elastic materials. Your expt. proves it!
Otherwise, new cars would always sit too high!
A Pearse

Ray, I used this method on my standard class race car.

There are two benefits, one is as you swap the leaf round it effectively softens the rear spring which allows the car to sit a little lower. The second is that by placing the small leaf on the top of the spring it acts in the same way as a lowering block which is another way of lowering leaf sprung cars.

Its difficult to say how much it will lower your car by as this is dependent upon tension of your existing spring. However I would estimate 1"+

The other advantage of this method is that it is easy to revert back to the original profile and there is no cost associated with the modification other than new washers or nuts for the 'U' bolts if you choose to replace them.

As a point of interest, one school of thought suggests it is better to have the rear springs a little on the soft side as they will help to provide traction to the rear wheels. If you use new springs which raise the ride height they can encourage the car to skip and break traction.
J Bray

Ray
I would agree with John - I too raced my MGA with rear springs using this configuration and can vouch for its effectiveness.

Mark
Mark Dollimore

Thanks All,
I will try the removal of the small lower most leaf spring. I hope putting it on top will be what I am looking for. It just sits too high for looks and also for hard cornering. Not that I do much of that sort of foolishness anymore.... :)

thanks again for the input,

Ray
Ray Ammeter

This thread was discussed between 26/10/2008 and 29/10/2008

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