Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Sagged leaf springs - curing by adding coil-overs?

Just a brainstorming - to avoid the difficult job changing sagged leaf springs, would it be an alternativ to complement the sagged leaf springs by adjustable coilover shocks to compensate the "sagging"?

Please do not try to convince me that the only right solution is new leaf springs. My Mog does not suffer under sagged leaf springs, my question is just of pure technical curiosity!

Thanks for opinions!

Peter

I've often wondered the same.

I thought the same but after asking those in the know I expect the existing shock mounting points would fail if they had to take the additional forces of a coil over...

Using the existing mountings is tight enough on clearance as it is.

The bottom mounts can shear, as can the top mounts, just with the damper, so if there's space it could be tested, but how long it would last is anybodys guess

I don't think there is enough room using the existing mounts.

I was looking very seriously into this before I changed to the Roadster with SSL 5 Link Suspension.

The coil spring would not need to be very highly rated and with adjustable spring seats on the coil overs it would give a way of setting the ride height and compensate for side to side sag.

I think it is do-able using separate mountings but it would take some development.

Of course you could leave the dampers as they are and setup separate mounts just for the soil springs.

Maybe Rog could adapt his bump stops.

I wonder if you could use bike monoshocks? They're fairly compact and adjustable.

I agree dedicated mounts would need to be fabricated, given those shock mounts can break without encouragement. But then just a few plates welded to the axle to accommodate top and bottom links, and a panhard rod whilst you're at it, would allow those saggy leaf springs to be chucked



Job done

Many thanks for your thoughts!

The question is, what additional load would the coilovers cause? It should be just the compensation of the "sagged-leafs-loss", which would be certainly much lower compared to the "only-coilovers" (like the SSL rear suspension). Moreover, if I understand it correct, the SSL rear suspension uses the original shock mounts without any modifications? In combination with Rog's bumpstops, to avoid the extreme load peaks of the shock mounts (which are, I guess, designed with some reserve?), it might work without any mount modification and risk of damage?

Just thoughts...

Peter

Peter the image above (with tongue in cheek comments ) is of the factory 5 link Roadster employing coil over suspension. As you can see the top bar, which bolts to the chassis, is substantially different to the leaf spring version which has to cope with only oblique shock absorber loads, and still has been known to break mounts! I wouldn't dream of adding extra loads to the latter. I would suggest therefore the later Roadster bar or similar would be a better starting point to employ coil springs. Note also that SSL supply the necessary dedicated top bar in their kit as below.



My own view FWIW if faced with your problem would get to fit new leaf springs or go the whole hog with full SSL conversion as recently described here. It would be an awful lot of work to weld on extra coil spring mounts top and bottom for unknown results.

I would agree Richard.