Hi Roger,
I woke up this morning with a sudden greater understanding of your thingies. (I call everything on a car a thingie and these days, I often wake up with an epiphany these days..odd how the mind ages!)
We both start off at the same conclusion. Many Morgan trads, made after the leaf springs curse began (best I can tell that was I had the start of m run of bad new sets in 2005 and after my 2002 was made), are sadly wanting at the rear. We both came to that conclusion and came up with an action plan, me with replacing springs until I finally found a set was defect free and you looking for an addon that supplemented or, de facto, replaces the springs with an adjustable systems based on a progressive rubber cone.
Your solution is very cool.... I like the adjustment feature. Air suspensions do that and Armstrongs (oil used or their select-a-ride had that feature with driver control on the fly) I also like the ease of installation. And I adore owner ingenuity!!!! Essentially, you have found way to compensate/substitute for a major defective and widely failing component which became a large part of Morgan production before your car was made.
What saddens me is that [b]all this would be unnecessary if the original component performed as it should [/b] as they always did before the leaf spring plague began. There is something else, by leaving the classic leaf springs, we lose a LOT of unseen leaf spring sophistication. I say unseen as it is IMPOSSIBLE to quantify the the suspension of any trad Morgan because of the flexing frame and its infinite variants. It would have to be done car-by-car. The tables and graphs and formulas can only apply to a component on a Morgan, not the end result when installed in the car. Those who suspension tweak THEIR Morgan individually have great success..those who buy one-size-fits-all have wildly varying results. You dodge that problem with your adjustability. In any event, in my experience, I have found very little is necessary to make a Morgan suspension feel sublime. But this lack of a source for proper leaf springs at the moment is a big problem, especially when it sends fine brains like yours to the drawing board looking for an alternative to the oldest, most reliable, suspension system for want of a decent part.
It is a current canard that we have been convinced of that coil springs are more "modern". They are merely cheaper. Leaf springs and the work the do offer more ride-shaping and are normally far sturdier. IMHO, they marry with the Morgan flexing frame to create a sensuous ride, assuming all is as it should be....which is so rarely the case.....Morgan owners too often tolerate the intolerable) I do not argue with magic. If leaf springs work with a flexing frame, I am all for them
My greatest fear, considering the number of leaf spring suppliers Morgan tried in that short period, is that something changed in the cars that makes leaf spring fail, but I dismiss that as impossible. Leaf springs are notoriously sturdy. The ongoing supplier failures for that long a period mystifies me.
Lorne
