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Do springs grow old? Ans: kinda probably, cheap to renew anyway.


anthonym

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They break over time - guess it's fatigue.

My brothers Ford Granada from around 1977 had lowered itself over time without breaking the springs, so I guess they can grow old. Nowadays it's more common to break though.

 

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Well, once spring is removed, if you stand on it how much does it go down by? In that the rating, is required weight to compress the spring by 1 inch, well according to this it is 

Anyone else getting a picture of a slightly 'heavy set' bloke doing a one legged squat, balancing on a spring which he's trying to measure with a rule.  Technically that is the way to measure it (a spring tester does exactly this) but it sounds tricky to me.

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Take a drill press.

A pair of bathroom scales.

A steel rule.

 

Place spring and rule vertcially on scales, the spring under the chuck.  Zero the scale.  Wind drill press down, compressing the spring a measured amount as seen on the rule alongside.  Read the scales.

Voila . . .

Something on the scales under the spring to spread the load helps. 

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I was thinking about suggesting something similar with a cheap hydraulic press (bottle jack type) but thought he was unlikely to have access to one.  I hadn't thought about using a drill press.  As long as you're confident the spring has a linear rate I suppose you only need to compress it an inch.  In that case you're only looking at about 100kgf and even a chintzy drill press should do.

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I don't think 50kg is going to give you enough compression for an accurate calculation. You're only going to get about 1/2" of compression so any error in your measuring will be quite large relative to the travel. Never mind the hilarity you'd have trying to actually line a rule up with the top of the spring with someone's foot wobbling around on it. On second thoughts it's a great idea, can you post the video on here please?

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Take a drill press.

A pair of bathroom scales.

A steel rule.

 

Place spring and rule vertically on scales, the spring under the chuck.  Zero the scale.  Wind drill press down, compressing the spring a measured amount as seen on the rule alongside.  Read the scales.

Voila . . .

Something on the scales under the spring to spread the load helps. 

Excellent (if i owned a pair of scales, it would help).

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Its the only reason I own one :) .  Argos special from when I was trying to work out what I needed on the trials car.

When you do own one - remember to measure the spring relative to the platform on the scales so you get the spring deflection only - not spring and scales.

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missing the point dear taz, it's a question of what spec they are

though I think they are "race spec" from year 2000 - but we don't know what that is.

and then to consider how to make it maybe less bouncy on uneven roads without affecting the handling in a disappointing way

 

- anthony

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