The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Your Ideas for Softening Ride

I have a 57 3100. I've replaced the stock springs with single leaf springs that drop the truck 2.5". I like the lower stance but I'm not crazy about the ride. It's stiff and any bump seems exagerated in the truck. I'm not really crazy about the idea of putting in a IFS. What are your ideas for softening the front end. If needed, I'm ok with raising the truck up a bit.

Jerry,you say you dont wanna go IFS,but in my humble opinion it is the best way to go if you want a really good handling and riding truck. I installed a TCI independent frontend,complete with power rack and pinion steering in my 55,and it rides and handles like a new truck.I am sure you will get other ideas from the guys on this board,but it worked out really well for me.Like I have posted before,my truck has a 350 V/8,700R4 trans.,so it is not actually a stovebolt anymore. The term stovebolt came from the old straight 6 engine,and not the truck itself.But hey,mine is set up just the way I like it,plenty of power and smooth shifting from the engine and trans. combo.And last but not least pretty good fuel economy,with the OD trans.

You can put leaf spring button sliders in your front springs. They are available at Chassis Engeineering or possibaly at your local spring shop for about a buck a piece.
That would let your front springs move a lot easier and take sone of the stiffness out of the front end.

He's got mono-leaf springs, buttons or teflon liner doesn't work when there's only one spring!

This is a problem with monos, they are stiff!

You can spend the 2 grand and go with an IFS if you want but I prefer old school and the best setup I've found is a 3" dropped axle and a front spring pack with 3 leafs removed, also using teflon liners. Nice and low, and smooth riding too.

The difference between hard and smooth ride is the balance of spring tension and body weight. You need a spring that flexes a little with the body weight but also has flex left for the compression on the spring.

Lighter springs will soften the ride, and lighter shock will take out the bounce.

You can have a lighter spring, but a shock that is too stiff and get a rough ride.

So check your shocks and check to see how much compression you have in the spring. If there is not much and feels too stiff, go to a light spring.

Make sure your shocks aren't nearing the end of their travel. Some of the harshness will go away if you ensure that they operate near the middle of their travel rather than near the upper limits.

Dave

I swapped the shocks out for the ones the distributor recommended to go with the springs.

You know, where there is a leaf spring, there can also be coil springs instead. But with coil springs, there are much greater choices for spring rates. You'd have to customize the installation, and probably contact Speedway Motors and talk to a tech guy about which springs to choose. One thing to keep in mind is that the stovebolt is an extremely heavy engine. It weighs about as much as a big block Chevy, actually a little more I think. But you can use 700 pounds as a good estimate.
The other thing you might need is a sway bar, since coil springs have no yaw stability.

i went the old skool way like waldo53.
3 inch dropped sraight axle, but i only removed one leaf.
and i must say, it dont ride that bad at all. removing the one leaf did soften it up, and i removed 4 from the back, leaving 3 total in the rear.
and it was a lot cheaper and less work than an IFS.

but i will say, dale937 has one heck of a 55.

leonard

Leonard,

Which leaves did you remove?

regards,
Leon

My guess, he had to remove the shortest leaves.

Another idea I had not thought of before is an air ride suspension. You could look into that and get rid of the leaf springs altogether.

For now, I think I'll remove a couple of leafs from my front springs too. That's a good idea.

LEON,
from the front, i removed the shortest leaf, from the bottom of the pack.
along with a 3 inch dropped axle, it gave me about 3 1/2 inch drop.
in the rear, out of the 7 leafs, i took the 4 shortest leafs out.
hope this helps. any other questions, feel free to ask.

you can check out my pics in my photobucket album.

leonard

and HOT ROD DAD, i have heard of guys removing 3-4 of the original 6 leaves from the front. but for me, it was too low.

leonard