which places on the list did you ring that do it as most of them dont do in my area

I didnt call any champ.
If you cant find any places in the yellowpages I guess it cant be done

Call "All Springs" and/or "Liverpool Springs", both in Liverpool. When this question was asked on ae86dc they both got the thumbs up from various members.

I had the flipped leaves in my 120y but I couldnt work out a combination to get the height just where I wanted it, it always ended up too low. Your ute might be different but i pulled mine out after one day.

Quote:

We tried this on a mate of mine's 120Y coupe racecar. Undrivable/Unpredictable/Diabolical was the outcome on that car. All we did was flip the main leaf with the eyes, then using a big vice forced them all back together. Ride height looked good but the above was the outcome.

Put it down to experience and ended up fitting coilovers and five-linking the car. Thinking about it afterwards the upside down main leaf was of course cancelling out the rate of the rest of the leaves and had a 'dead' feel to it.

Pretty much worked like a length of angle iron being about that 'springy'!

Pretty sure that mine were reset cold (ie not heated)

never thought it would be this hard to lower a blody datsun ucking hell

so my only option i spose is a reset

ill give the guys tyrie said a call

and phunk
who is the guy in the pic then...lol...
is it you doing it yourself or something
i thought you originaly posted a list of guys that do it
not yellow pages being smartass
thats why i asked which of the 100 people on the list you used to save me a week of phone calls

I'd be suprised if you had any difficult finding somebody there to reset leaves. I had this done on my B120 not long ago and most spring specialists i called could do it but the price varied a lot. In the end I went with a very long established company as I figured they would have the experience and get it right, plus they had on of the cheapest prices around. They do them cold and charged me the equivelent of about $120AU to do a pair. I know it's not directly helpful as I'm in another country but I figure of most spring places here can do it, I doubt it'll be any different there.

FWIW I have tried various methods of flipping leaves etc and the outcome has always been a dreadful ride so I wouldn't try that. Good luck with it anyway.

-Ed

Quote:
There is nothing hard about lowering a Datsun, the problems all revolve around Australias obsession with "quick & easy" which usually translates to "cheap & nasty"

We are dealing with one of one of the most important elements of vehicle safety & many just want to mess with something that they obviously have no understanding of whatsoever.

You, on the other hand are to be commended as you are obviously doing your homework & learning as you go & that's something I can admire.

Simply put, for mild lowering in vehicles that are not going to see 'severe duty' then modest lowering blocks can be used but are not really the solution. My personal limit in a small Datsun would be 1-1/2" as this is something like 30 to 40% of the original suspension travel in a 1200 passenger model.

For those who want to get serious, resetting combined with an increase in spring rate is the right way to do it, everything else is unsafe & may be downright dangerous.
Once this fact is accepted, it's a simple matter to make a plan & get it done.

quick and easy and seems to be doing fine in the back of my sedan:
stock leaf pack with a ute load leaf on top, results in being a fairly decent height rear guard about half way up the tyre on a 195 50 15 and is a fair whack stiffer than stock
so in summary i put one leaf in and it got the rear end exactly how i wanted it to be

Quote:

dodgeman, your unsafe and down right dangerous....im guessing doing it the right way always involves paying someone else to do it

Quote:Now now, don't be a cranky bum.
In what way, specifically, do you think am I dangerous &/or unsafe?

Did you secure the Ute load leaf to the spring pack with some form of clip to prevent it from twisting out of alignment or does it just sit there?
I'm presuming that it is flatter than the stock spring pack & is pushing down on it, forcing the original spring pack to flatten out. This of course dramatically increases the spring rate in the opposite direction, i.e. it prevents or severely restricts the body from rising above a certain height after the spring has compressed when passing over a bump in the road.
I imagine this would result in a very harsh ride with the rebound coming to a sudden stop half way through the normal suspension travel, meaning that under 'sporting' conditions the inertia of the rising body will momentarily tend to lift the wheels from the road.
In reality the result would most likely be a momentary reduction of tyre pressure on the road surface as it tries to lift. Now that'll be something to look forward to on a wet night when punting it hard round a tight right hander, particularly with a locker diff.

This doesn't sound to me like the action of a suspension that is safe, but perhaps there are some here who are truly knowledgable that can reassure me that it is.
Did you install the Ute load leaf right way up or inverted.
Any pictures?

A great many on this forum seem to want to simply remove spring leaves or invert one or more, or invert one & place it on top. All of these practices fall under what I termed "Quick & easy" however spare Ute load spring leaves are not commonly seen & sourcing some is not 'easy' for most people most of the time. You were fortunate to have access to some.

None the less, forcing one spring leaf [or stack] down with another one strikes me as being entirely counterproductive & I wonder why it is a practice that is not widely adopted by racers or suspension specialists as the economic benefits are plainly there for all to see. I also wonder how many successfull racers use this method.

I have no idea whether it would pass muster at rego time either. Perhaps someone who actually knows might enlighten us.

Sometimes it's necessary to utilise the services of professionals to achieve the right result, ... for example, very few will bore out their own engine with makeshift tools, it's really a job for a professional with the right equipment. As for me, ... well I'm not in a position to readily source Ute spring leaves or to do my own spring resetting, hot or cold, so I'm left with few alternatives.
I would venture to say that the vast majority of forumites are in the same position.

Now, tell me again, ... specifically, why am I dangerous or unsafe? I'm sure we would all like to know.

im pretty sure posting a few paragraphs that could easily be summed up in a few sentences is a DANGEROUS waste of the time of anyone reading it

did i secure the load leaf with some form of clip, yeah the same one they use in stock applications....which seems to be non existant
flatter than a stock spring pack and pushing down on it? yes the load leaf is big and straight, doesnt bend easy...makes for a good flattener
yes its inverted....other wise it wouldnt do a good job of lowering the car
im sure if you look through my photo album you will catch a glimpse of it in one of 2 pictures

a ute load leaf should be too hard for demo to find...as he has a ute

you may think that pushing one spring down with another is counterproductive....well yeah im countering one spring with another to make the first spring push up less, hence the lower ride height
it also preloads the spring and makes it stiffer

you wonder why this practice is not widley adopted, maybe its because not every one has ute load leafs lying around as you said
and im sure many budget racers use a similar method to what i have done, but im also sure that many racers would also like a bit more tuneability than a big leaf pushing on some not so big leaves, hence the paying to tune the suspention to what they need

maybe i should take my car to get a roady just to see what they say, my bet is on them not saying anything as they would have no idea that its not supposed to be there....also anyone doing a raody on my car would have far more exciting things to look at like the "dodgy" home made engine conversion diff conversion brake conversion and any other modified part of my car
someone who actually knows would say something like "anything not stock should be engineered"

im sure many people would go to a shop and be happy to hand over money, but just coz you cant do something doesnt mean every one else is the same

after typing that i really dont see how you can actually churn out all these long posts
edit: and oh my god its not even as long as your last post