heating springs

[Calmeraf]

just been speaking to a lad who says you can heat the spring let the jack down to the hight you want the car then let them cool and this lowers them, this sounds strange anyone ever heard of this

 

[RAJackson]

erm... your gonna stick a blowtorch into your wheel arch? right beside your brake lines? and fire it at painted metal? at an oil filled shock? with rubber seals, bushes and seats?

great idea! :lol:

 

[Calmeraf]

lolol!!

that was my response to him!!!

however we use blowtorches all the time though to heat seased bolts.

 

[RAJackson]

lolol!!

that was my response to him!!!

however we use blowtorches all the time though to heat seased bolts.

yeah. thats fine. but to make a spring malleable you will need to heat it white hot...

which will make it brittle and will probably snap first pothole you hit

 

[Calmeraf]

Mate, dw i was chatting to him at work, me and my mate found it funny as fuck !

 

[alanandlexie]

Whilst in theory yes it would be possible, but wou would have to remove the spring heat it to glowing, then temper the thing back down to the right degree before it would be safe to use. It was quite common with leaf springs in the good old days to have them re tempered when they sagged.

 

[shaggy_master]

A lot of my mates with corsas/novas remove the springs from the car and put them underneath a drive-on ramp in their MOT bay and compress them slightly and get the oxy cetaline (however you spell that!) and heat them up extremely so they are actually reformed shorter.
There's something about the way you have to cool them down though in order to keep them from going brittle as before mentioned..
I'd personally never do this.
Joe

 

[Calmeraf]

thats it thats what the barry was talking about oxy setaline?
same i'd never touch them!

fook that
just save for coil overs

 

[Corbalicious]

A lot of my mates with corsas/novas

Shoulda just stopped there, as thats enough reason not to do it.

Oxyacetylene?

 

[shaggy_master]

Bingo Corbs.. Never even had to attempt spelling that before, not being in the motor trade.
Joe

 

[Corbalicious]

It's used for quite a lot of things, including scrapyards Can gas-axe pretty much anything!

 

[CoV]

i use it at work, friggin awesome, 2 inch plate. . . Straight through as for heatin to lower th springs, the rate will still be th same im sure so bumpstop hitting hell would happen id say.

 

[Hopelessness]

Probably worse than cutting springs, which actually raises the spring rate.

 

[alanandlexie]

There's something about the way you have to cool them down though in order to keep them from going brittle as before mentioned..
Joe

Yep that's called tempering, Heat the bugegr up then quench it and it will be hard and brittle, you have to heat it back up to a certain temperature then let it cool.

Was certainly NOT an accepted practice in any Nova community I was part of. Ther is also the problem on a Nova/Corsa rear beam that if you fit shortened springs, it's possible for them to fall outif you manage to get the back end off the ground.

 

[gldnandy1987]

how would you gaurantee that all 4 springs cool exaclty the same and where axactly the same length, sounds extremely stupid thing to do really

 

[Calmeraf]

mate the list of things i said back to the kid included nearly everything thats already been said including that. driving down the road on a slant

 

[RAJackson]

corsa's will be like micras.

almeras use whats known as a mcpherson strut, which is a strut inside the spring.

micra's and (probably) corsa's have another kind on the rear (dont know name) where the strut is separate to the spring.

older C series mercs are the same on the front and back.

so basically yeah, take the load off the spring on the rear and there is nothing holding it into its seat, if they are short enough they can fall out

 

[gldnandy1987]

my mates astra sxi has same design, was piss easy to replace rear springs, just jacked the fucker up and pull em out lol