Installed my "new" springs from the spring shop. Rears are near perfect and although I've not mearsured it yet the drop I achieved with reversed eyes and going to 6 leaves looks just about right - plenty of travel available but it looks to sit much nicer and should ride much nicer as well.

The front is another issue - went with reversed eyes and 5 leaves thinking that seems to be the best advice I've gotten from the search and general wisdom of the forum but I think I may have misundrestood and got the spring wisdom for F 100s confused with what works for a F1. Five leaves up front with a flathead V-8 sits the thing down to within about a 1/2 inch of the bump stops. The front spring pack of a F1 is 1 3/4" wide springs and I think maybe the later trucks use 2" springs all round. Could make quite a difference.

Front springs will be going back to my local spring shop for some re-thinking and more leaves - suggestions as to how many more might be approriate to give me reasonable suspension travel with the heavy engine?

Saw a 51 or 52 at the Turkey Run today in Daytona and a truck with the flathead V-8 and straight axle like mine was running 8 leaves and only had about 2 inches clearance from the bump stops.

I'm confused! Thoughts or comments are most welcome!

Thanks

 

8 front leaves and about 2" of clearance sounds very much like the stock spring pack setup. Even with 8 leaves, the front springs have very little arch - almost flat with the flathead V8 on top of them.

Personal opinion, but I don't think it rides too bad with the stock setup.

 

Your spring shop can put more arch in the springs to raise it.

 

Thanks for the quick feedback gents. The truck I noted with the 8 leaves appeared to be pretty much stock and as you suggested the spring pack was just about sitting flat. I'll talk with the local spring experts and see what they suggest. I really don't know what the stock pack rode like as the truck had extra main leaves (with the eyes torched off) added to each pack when I got it. Nice to know that 2" clearance may be enough up front - good enough for stock probably good enough for me and my plans for the truck although if I go with a "softer" spring pack I could expect more movement I guess. I'll let you know what I do and how it works out!

Thanks!

 

Dropped the springs off today...going to arch them up an inch and add one leaf made from slightly thicker steel to beef up the spring (this will be the 3rd leaf...main, second then this one). My spring guy says this should give me between 2 to 2 1/2 inches of lift and the spring will probably be almost level when loaded. That would be enough...not sure what it's going to cost but hopeful that it won't be too much. I'll let you know how it ends up - probably be a couple weeks before I'll get a chance to get to the shop with the holiday activities! I'll try and post some pictures of the finished ride height.

Oilleaks - restoring at the speed of a tired snail