Suspensions on Kustom Cars?

[JollySipper]

Hey, Guys..... I've been wondering something. The old lead sled kustom cars of the '50s and '60s, they were often lowered from the factory ride height. How was this most commonly done? Did they have a sort of 'air ride' suspension back then? What about hydraulics? I know that hydraulics were used by the lowrider community, but that didn't really start until the late '60s (right?)

Just curious as to if all the customs that were built back then had static suspensions......

Thanks!

[Oldcarfan27]

The first hydraulic suspension incorporated on a car was done on a Kustomized Corvette sometime in the mid 50s, using surplus military aircraft landing parts. The owners name was Ron Aguirre and the car was called X Sonic.

I've heard a story that he would drive around with the car lowered, be pulled over by a cop for the infraction and as the cop would write him up, he would subtly raise the car up before the cop could measure it's unlawful height. Leading to his acquittal.

That's how it all started. Look it up!

Edited February 22, 2020 by Oldcarfan27

[Spex84]

Back in the '50s lead sleds had mostly static suspension drops. There were a number of ways of doing this:

-coils cut from front coil springs

-dropped spindles

-leaf springs reversed ("reversed spring eyes") so they'd wrap under the shackles instead of over.

-rear leaf spring mounts sunk into pockets in the frame/new spring mounts added in a higher position so the car sits lower.

-front A-arms modified with pockets to drop the coil springs lower and still retain all the coils

-stepped A-arms

 

Hydraulic suspension showed up in its early form in the X-sonic and Jim Logue's X54. https://kustomrama.com/wiki/Hydraulics

 

In 1957 Cadillac introduced a version of air suspension that was intended to give a cushy ride, and in 1958 Buick introduced air-cusion shock absorbers that could apparently raise the car 5.5 inches for use on rough roads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_suspension

[ChrisBcritter]

7 hours ago, Spex84 said:

-rear leaf spring mounts sunk into pockets in the frame/new spring mounts added in a higher position so the car sits lower.

Or good old fashioned lowering blocks between the spring and rear axle. Then there was heating the front coils with a torch until the car sank the desired amount, which was just as safe as it sounds .

[Can-Con]

I don't think most people are aware of this but mid-'50s Packards had adjustable suspension. 

They had torsion bars that could be cranked up or down a few inches with an electric motor and a series of rods.

[oldscool]

The old Mopars had manually adjustable torsion bars. I dropped the front of my old 66 Fury by cranking them down.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Funny that the single most prevalent method of lowering cars by backyard hackers (and some people who really should have known better as well) in the early days has been entirely overlooked.

Long shackles applied to buggy-spring suspension systems (transverse leaf-springs, like Ford used through 1948) were common.

They also destroyed any semblance of stability because they ignored, typically, the way things actually work, and why.

Longer-than-stock shackles on transverse springs allow a car to move sideways on its suspension during cornering, often to a very dangerous degree.

Tail-dragger "lead sleds" were notorious offenders, until reasonably intelligent builders learned to employ "anti-sway" bars, also known as Panhard bars.

Side-to-side "sway" can be mitigated by a transverse link that limits the movement of the body/chassis relative to the suspension.

Over the years, interestingly, the "anti-roll" bar, an entirely different thing that does something very different, has come to be known as a "sway bar"...which it isn't.

The other hugely popular method for lowering cars with beam front axles has also been overlooked. 

"Dropped" front axles, sometimes called "Diegoed or Dagoed" back in the late '40s and early '50s (not an ethnic reference, so don't anybody get excited), were built from stock axles by heating the ends and re-forging them to position the king-pin bosses higher relative to the main beam. This is not the same as "dropped spindles" mentioned above. Done correctly, it's fine. Done wrong, which it frequently was, the axle snaps.

"Torching" springs, both leaf and coil (already mentioned) was another popular hacker modification. Again heavily functional-ignorance based, it destroys the temper of the metal the spring is made from, tends to locally embrittle it, and frequently resulted in broken springs.

As far as adjustable suspension goes, "air bags" date back to 1950. Originally developed as overload-helper devices, they were soon recognized by the custom community as a way to provide adjustable ride height. '50s stock-car racers liked 'em too, and Air Lift sponsored several. "Air-lift shocks" followed, allowing simpler installation of the lift feature. I used them on the rear of my own Porsche-engined '62 VW Bug slalom car for weight jacking.

Early hydraulically-adjustable suspensions from the late '50s used salvaged and surplus aircraft hydraulic pumps, cylinders, accumulators, and plumbing.

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by Ace-Garageguy

[crazyjim]

Cheapest way was to take a torch to the coil & leaf springs. You could get about a 2" drop.

[espo]

Back in the day my '51 Ford was getting it's new duel exhaust and Smittys the muffler shop guy was kind enough to heat the front springs until the lower control arms were almost touching the bump stops on the frame. Looked cool but you would have to stick to the smoothest roads you could find. 

 

 

[OldNYJim]

A technique that I just read about that I thought was cool was moving the leaf spring mounts so that, where applicable, instead of them mounting on the underside of the frame they’d move them ‘inboard’ and mount THROUGH the frame sideways to gain a couple of inches.  

Just used that trick myself to solve an engineering issue that I was trying to overcome!

[Spex84]

Thanks guys, I totally overlooked the 2 most obvious mods: torching coils and installing lowering blocks! 

We haven't touched on Z-ing frames, but I'm not sure many (any?) customs used that technique, even if it became common for hot rods.

[Ace-Garageguy]

12 minutes ago, Spex84 said:

...We haven't touched on Z-ing frames, but I'm not sure many (any?) customs used that technique, even if it became common for hot rods.

Zee-ing rear frames was occasionally seen on customs where the builders wanted to retain usable wheel travel, and C-notching the rails for axle clearance didn't give enough.

It wasn't a popular mod because it requires very extensive metal work on the trunk floor to get the body to fit.

 

[Joe Handley]

I think Harry Bentley Bradley’s LaJolla Chevy did, but I don’t ever remember seeing much about it in customs like I have hot rods.

 

[Jantrix]

On 2/21/2020 at 9:21 PM, Spex84 said:

-leaf springs reversed ("reversed spring eyes") so they'd wrap under the shackles instead of over.

This seems soooooooo risky because theres an awful lot of weight riding on those welds. And a weld failure could be catastrophic.

[Spex84]

8 hours ago, Jantrix said:

This seems soooooooo risky

Reversing a spring doesn't involve cutting and welding (as far as I know), just pressing the spring until it's curved in the opposite direction from original.

I don't think I've ever read about a spring eye "unwrapping" and causing a crash...but who knows, maybe it's happened.

[Ace-Garageguy]

21 hours ago, Jantrix said:

This seems soooooooo risky because theres an awful lot of weight riding on those welds. And a weld failure could be catastrophic.

 

13 hours ago, Spex84 said:

Reversing a spring doesn't involve cutting and welding (as far as I know), just pressing the spring until it's curved in the opposite direction from original.

I don't think I've ever read about a spring eye "unwrapping" and causing a crash...but who knows, maybe it's happened.

Spex84 is correct. It can be done on a shop press (or with a big hammer if you're really old-school) with a little time and patience. Here's the time-tested cold method, just like from the rod mags way back when...

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/re-tech-reversing-a-main-leaf-spring-eyes.225377/

An alternative hot method is to heat, flatten, and re-roll the eyes, then re-temper the metal. Not recommended for amateurs, but entirely safe if done right. Big IF.

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by Ace-Garageguy

[Jantrix]

14 hours ago, Spex84 said:

Reversing a spring doesn't involve cutting and welding (as far as I know), just pressing the spring until it's curved in the opposite direction from original.

I don't think I've ever read about a spring eye "unwrapping" and causing a crash...but who knows, maybe it's happened.

 

1 hour ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

 

Spex84 is correct. It can be done on a shop press (or with a big hammer if you're really old-school) with a little time and patience. Here's the time-tested cold method, just like from the rod mags way back when...

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/re-tech-reversing-a-main-leaf-spring-eyes.225377/

An alternative hot method is to heat, flatten, and re-roll the eyes, then re-temper the metal. Not recommended for amateurs, but entirely safe if done right. Big IF.

 

Ah, I see. Thanks very much for straightening that out. ?