Quote:
Originally Posted by Car photographer
You always hear about the dreaded 'swing axel' on spitfires, and mine is on such narrow tyres that I'm too scared to take corners at any sort of speed in case I end up in a ditch or worse.
I almost wish I had an identical car to practice on in case anything went wrong,
I do like the idea of taking leaves out of the rear spring though as mine has a very hard ride, presumably because there's less weight in it than on the original spitfire donor,
Is it difficult to do?
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I have a mk1 Vitesse chassis under mine so it's on swing axles. With the suspension settings I have I don't suffer any unwanted effects, the car is just too light to trigger the 'tuck under' issues that Beetles, Heralds and pre Swing-spring Spitfires suffered -
The roughly 2" wider track that the wire wheel adaptors give also help stability in corners. Oh, and don't forget that Stirling Moss set a record Mille Miglia time in a Mercedes 300SLR, equipped with swing axles.
As for removing leaves from the rear spring, no, it's not difficult at all. Asuming you don't have a swing-spring at the back (which has a pronounced 'Mexican Hat' shape to the central top cover that clamps the stack to the diff) once you've removed the rear spring all you do is take the nut off the 'peg' that runs down through the centre of the spring stack into a blind hole in the top of the diff and you can just lift off the top three leaves.
Most people then refit the remaining springs and run with that setup. I found that the back end was still a little bouncy for my liking, so I ended up removing one more leaf from the next stack down. They're accessed by undoing the bolts on the two inner clamps (I had to cut mine off), lifting off the next three leaves, removing one of the lower two (the top one is riveted to the clamps) and then refitting the rear spring.
One bit of advice I would give anyone doing this is to Loctite the studs into the diff and use new Nyloc nuts on the top of the studs, otherwise they can work loose, which mine did.
If you get your spring rates, ride height and suspension geometry set right the car should feel light, grippy, agile and very confidence inspiring on the road. Hope that helps.