Grinding leaf spring ends

[1987Chevy]

A friend of mine knows a guy with a suburban on 8" front springs. The guy took an angle grinder with a flap wheel and ground some more taper into the ends of the leafs in the pack. I've never personally talked to this guy but according to my friend this gave this thing a real cushy ride. I was wondering if any one else has ever heard of this and what the cons would be besides weakening the ends of the leafs.

 

[MTBLAZER89]

I have heard of that or rounding the end of the springs. My Superlift rears are rounded, but I don't know if it helps or not. I can't imagine it does a whole lot. Spring rate determines the ride quality.

 

[DavidB]

'Pends on how much you taper. I imagine if you tapered 'em back a few inches, they're be softer. Kinda add a progressive effect. Heck, I might try it.

 

[resurrected_jimmy]

Well made springs come with the ends tapered. I imagine you would have to have some serious gouging of the underside of the leaves in the packs going on for homemade tapering of the spring ends to have that much effect on ride quality

 

[jekbrown]

i smooth the ends of leafs I use on my K5. I doubt it changes ride height much, but it does help with spring bind and reducing friction between the leaves.

j

 

[1987Chevy]

'Pends on how much you taper. I imagine if you tapered 'em back a few inches, they're be softer. Kinda add a progressive effect. Heck, I might try it.

thats supposedly what the guy says it does is make kinda more progressive by lowering the rate

 

[DavidB]

Pretty simple...the spring is what is holding the truck up, them more you move, the softey it will get. Also reduces the area of friction at the end of the leaves.

 

[Brians89K5]

Call up deaver and ask them why they do it. I was reading an article in 4wheeler about deaver. Deaver says they taper the ends of the springs to reduce pack bind and to get away from having to run teflon pucks between the springs. The teflon pucks can end up with dirt and rocks between the springs helping to create more friction. Also, the only thing that will change ride characteristics is to reduce the size of each leaf spring. If you look at deaver packs notice how they have more that are thiner? This allows for a more linear compression rate and a smoother ride. I doubt that tapering your spring is going to help much in reducing spring rate unless your springs are binding and gouging into each other.

~Brian

 

[ntsqd]

Leaf Spring spring rate is dependent on the width and thickness of each leaf in the pack. Changing either changes the total spring rate.