The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop Dropped Axle vs Single Leaf Spring

Looking at ways to safely lower my 58 Apache. Two options I am looking into are dropped axle and single leaf spring kit. With the dropped axle, I am looking at buying longer steering arms. With the single leaf spring, I am worried about stability (side to side travel). For those who have done either, what are your opinons? Thanks.

From what I have read, the single leaf springs are dangerous. If they break, you are hitting the pavement! Atleast with a multi-leaf spring, the others may hold it long enough to get out of danger.

Joe

Mono leaf springs are perfectly safe. Plenty of OEMs use monoleaf springs, including Corvette since '84 and the 2nd gen Chrysler minivans. I have yet to see one with a failed spring, exept for 1 Dodge Caravan, but it wasn't a breakage failure, but rather the spring eye was stretched out due to a carless tow truck driver thinking the rear spring was agood place to hook up to to pull the van out of a ditch.
I have, however, seen plenty of failed multi leaf springs, with the vehicle ridig on the jounce bumpers.

I bought a set of the Mono-Leafs and one snapped in half on me on I-80.
Tore up a brand new tire,sent me to the right lane in a hurry, and cost me 120.00 to have the truck towed home. The "truck parts place" in California reimbursed me for everything,, but no more mono-leafs for me.
Your best bet is a drop axle www.droppedaxles.com or de-arch your springs and remove a few leaves. Thats what im running now.

When using the dropped axles, do you use your stock springs?

Any time anything in your steering or suspension breaks you could have a very dangerous situation. Properly engineered quality parts installed correctly is the answer.

I've not run mono-leafs on an AD truck but if the parts are well designed and manufactured I'd not be afraid of them. I have a car with fiberglass mono-leafs and spring failure is not common on them.

Years ago I had a Blazer with mono-leafs and I beat it up enough to break the spring mounts (and other things), but never had any trouble with the springs themselves.

Anytime you change the relationship of the spindles to the steering you may need to make adjustments to prevent bump steer. Relative to the steering box dropping your truck with a mono-leaf isn't any different than dropping the axle.

You can combine lowering methods such as mono-leafs and a
dropped axle to achieve more drop. You need to watch the tie-rod and steering arm locations to be sure you're not causing trouble.

Look for trucks that have the stance you want at car shows and crawl under with your camera to see how they did it. Asking the owners is good too, but I've found that often the guy showing a truck doesn't actually know how it was built.

Thanks for the helpful info. Probably get with Sid from Dropped Axles and get setup.

I have ? for you im looking to lower the front of my 49 suburban i see everyone says to use Sid product from droppedaxle.com but is there anything wrongwith using the new made axle from cpp Sid product looks very very nice and the only reasonim asking IS because im going to collect all my parts before i do my tear downand rebuild and Sid is out of his core axles so i would have to buy one locally $100 and send it out to him shipping ?? and his price to stretch and old axle is more expensive then if i where to just buy the new one from cpp so i guess my real ? is. Which axle is thebetter product and what are the pros and cons to either one thanks

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The stock axle is American made steel, the new one is Who knows what! The stock axle is heated and bent, the new axle is made that way. Its a tough call, whats the warranty like on the new one? Whats Sids warranty? What are the shipping costs? Both will get the job done. If it was mine, I would go for a stock axle, I just feel better about using a GM product even if it is altered. Axle have been heated and bent for a lot of years, and you don't hear about a lot of them breaking. Ask over on the Jalopy Journal site, they do a lot more dropping then on this site, theres even pictures on how its done if you search around.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=5

I have both the dropped axle and the mono-leafs on my 54. I have been running this setup for a long time with no problems. I have the new axle that cpp sells, I bought mine from Cen-pen way back when they first came out with them. As far as I know Cen-pen makes them here not overseas.