Has Anybody else ever heard of this Procedure???
I read this years ago in the back of one of the Chevy Performance Parts catalogs (GM publication that lists all the over the counter performance parts available) It was probable a late 70's issue....
This was a procedure that involved compressing the spring and tapping the compressed spring repeatidly with a hammer...
End result was a "lowered" spring...
The article even went on to say, be careful, because it doesn't take many hits to produce the lowered results...
I am just wondering why I have never heard Anybody talk about this....
It seems like a better alternative than cutting the coils to give a desired heigth...
I'd never done it and cannot find the article/book that it was in...
Could ANYBODY that read this before please chime in so the rest of the people in here don't think I'm nutzzz http://www.camaros.net/forum/rolleyes.gif
It was the 70's http://www.camaros.net/forum/wink.gif...but....I didn't dream this up....the same book also had a few pages on some aerodynamic body mod's for the 2nd gen Camaro...
This may help some of the Guys that want to cut their coils for Their desired heigth and although I'm no metallurgist<sp?>/engineer, I imagine it is what causes a spring to sag over the years while driving,(compressed spring inplace and repeated bumps and potholes)...

How would you ever get them to be the same height???

You might as well just heat them with a torch while they are still in the car, and hope that everything goes your way.

Hmmm. . I kinda like the torch idea http://www.camaros.net/forum/biggrin.gif . . why didn't I think of that sooner (probably because it's stupid). Just lay a block that is 2" from the top of the block to the bottom of the frame on each side of the car, then start heating up the springs until the car sinks down onto the "lowering" blocks. Voila! !! 2" lowering kit!

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68 Coupe, 350 4-speed
Jim's Camaro Corner (http://www.personal.psu.edu/jxu109/)

spames, you'll loose the temper on the springs, not a good idea.

I was trying to be sarcastic, and show that the 2 above methods shouldn't be published anywhere. I guess I should have been clearer http://www.camaros.net/forum/wink.gif

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68 Coupe, 350 4-speed
Jim's Camaro Corner (http://www.personal.psu.edu/jxu109/)

Putting aside the notion that this should have absolutely no effect on the spring, think about it from a safety standpoint. How in the world are you going to fully compress the spring??!! And if you plan on trying, please make sure I'm in a different state 'cause if it breaks or gets loose, you're gonna have one hell of a dangerous projectile(s) flying all over the place!

Please reconsider the other alternatives...

Bill C.


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Bill C.
Colorado Springs, CO

68 Camaro... someday!
71 Chevelle SS
70 Nova

OK....ALRIGHT.....Like I said....this was published in a manual that was distributed through Genereral Motors....
Of course there are safety issues...I never said to fully compress the things in a bench vice and start wailing on them with a sledgehammer!
This was maybe done by old racers for chassis tuning since the spring availability just wasn't what it was today??? I dunno...
I just thought that there would be someone in here that had heard of it before...thats all...

I've heard of it for use on leaf springs to change the arch.
David

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Check my web page for First Gen Camaro suspension info:
David's Motorsports page (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/David_Pozzi/)
First Gen Suspension Page (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/David_Pozzi/first_gen_suspension.htm)
67 RS 327 original owner. 69 Camaro Vintage Racer, 65 Lola T-70 Chev SB Can-Am Vintage Racer

sorry spames, sometimes sarcasm doesnt compute this late at night http://www.camaros.net/forum/biggrin.gif

I had my leaf springs on an older Jeep Cherokee Chief re-arched to lift the truck a bit. They let me watch and it was pretty interesting.

They heated the leafs in a furnace until they were glowing red, then set them in a jig that bent them to the new radius. Then they whacked them a bunch of times with a great big hammer to get the tension to release and let them set to the new radius, then dropped them into a water bath. I think the water restored the temper. They worked great.

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Scott
'69 400SB, Richmond 5-speed
www.geocities.com/sdenning1 (http://www.geocities.com/sdenning1)

Now I have read that you can take a coil spring and compress it between two great big flat washers with a long piece of al-thread rod and then put it in an oven at 450 or so for several hours to change the length of it!

This low a temperature doesn't hurt the strengths but rather relaxes the height or so I figure. This method has been used by racers in the past.

Might be worth a try b/c you could use a kitchen oven if the significant other didn't get upset with the paint smoke and stuff like that.

I did however toast my short 406's rods at 450 overnight to stress relieve them before I installed them per a book's instructions and they are fine. pdq67

Overnight at 450!! Hope you did that in the middle of the winter.

That must have been a costly toasting.



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68 Coupe, 350 4-speed
Jim's Camaro Corner (http://www.personal.psu.edu/jxu109/)

Just sit the springs under your mattress for a couple of weeks, and that should do the trick! It may take little longer, and much longer for some depending on one's Midnight action! lol

pdq67, Ive heard garlic is good on em'! http://www.camaros.net/forum/smile.gif
YUK YUK!
David

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Check my web page for First Gen Camaro suspension info:
David's Motorsports page (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/David_Pozzi/)
First Gen Suspension Page (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/David_Pozzi/first_gen_suspension.htm)
67 RS 327 original owner. 69 Camaro Vintage Racer, 65 Lola T-70 Chev SB Can-Am Vintage Racer

I would not recommend heating the compressed spring that way. Essentially you would be annealing the spring and the grain structure of the metal could be altered dramatically. Unless you know for sure the exact composition of the metal in the spring the results could be disaterous.

All I'm gonna say is that the article said it worked fine! Now if I could only lay my hands on the book!!! pdq67

There are several ways to stress relieve springs.

One way is to compress the spring into coil bind before use. Most everybody does this to new valve springd, makes them last longer.

The spring, coil, as it is made, receives alot of work, machining, and other stresses during the manufacturing process. It becomes too hard, loses its intended properties. The only way to restore its function is to stress relieve it.

Compress it, and hit it with a hammer. Really shadetree, but, effective. Aligns all those domains.

When a jetliner lands after flying through a lightening storm, you see the ground crew come out and hit the wings with hammers. Thet are realigning the domains within the metal to de-magnetize the plane.

I know it sounds alittle (alot) funky, but, stuff works. Every metal gets work-harden, gotta relieved it. Corny way to say it, but, works like sex. You get stressed, sex works it off, same applies.

The other method is to stress relieve by applying heat, usually, at 350 degF for alum, properly clamped, 450 degF for steel, as pdq67 suggests.

Another method is vibratory stress relieving during the manufacturing process. Induce the metal to its fundamental frequency and stress relieve it while welding, machining, etc. Works VERY well. Ask Bonal Technology, NASCAR been doing this for years, as well as NASA.

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Everett 68/350/PG/11.90/115mph

Thanks Everett for backing me up.

Guy's, I'm as shade-tree as the good old boy country mechanics and my Blacksmith friend was that taught me a whole bunch a stuff that I know from practical experience, so won't try to pull the wool over anybody when it comes to this stuff.

I had never heard about the deal with the plane and static electricity but what the hey, I haven't heard or read about a whole bunch a stuff! pdq67