Rear spring lowering blocks / inspection hatch

[Mj17]

Hi,
Spent today fitting a 1" lowering block to my car and wondering if anyone else had done it and what they did with the inspection hatch over the top of the diff. as, with the spring sitting 1" higher it sits too high?

Cheers.

[JohnD]

Nothing.
A 1" block shouldn't lift it high enough to be a problem.
John

[Paul Garvey]

Shouldn't be a problem but perhaps the longer studs are impacting?  

Paul

[Clive]

It was difficult for me. That was with a courier spring. Needed a bar to "modify" the spring tunnel slightly, and used bolts rather than studs to help with clearance. Then a spacer type bodge to get the cover on.  Maybe the courier springs are thicker??

[Slimboyfat]

Rear springs have different numbers of leaves depending on model. More leaves, thicker overall spring.

For instance rotoflex GT6 = 6 leaf.
Courier 8 leaf.

Probably no clearance issues on a GT6, however Courier van (and others) will have clearance issues.

I believe Bill Davis has made a special cover that accommodates extended applications.

[heraldcoupe]

Slimboyfat wrote:

I believe Bill Davis has made a special cover that accommodates extended applications.

I prototyped a handful of these last year, but there was very little interest in them, certainly not enough to justify a production batch with the rather complicated forming process I was using at the time. The first ones were made in 2mm ABS plastic, which as it turned out was rather thicker than they needed to be, and didn't help the moulding process!

I am currently commissioning a rather more elegant moulding system. I will run off a small batch in 1mm or 1.5mm ABS as soon as the equipment is up together, to see how they go. Hopefully they will be done ahead of the Stoneleigh show in March, though I have quite a lot of other stuff to deal with ahead of that,

Cheers,
Bill.

[heraldcoupe]

A correction to the above:

The inspection panels I moulded were for the Herald & Vitesse. The Spitfire hatch is different, and sits with the fuel tank very close above. It might be possible to gain a little extra clearance with a cutom moulding, but there's nowhere near the same scope we have with the Herald body,

Cheers,
Bill.

[mikeyb]

yep courier spring with 1" block will not let you fit cover back on without mods.  You may just be lucky if you use bolts instead of studs but be very careful with the length as they may protrude into the diff if too long.

Not difficult to mod a cover with either a spacer or tinsnips and a welder.  I look forwards to seeing Bill's development at Stonleigh, and may well buy one if the price is right!

[Tim Bancroft]

I need one for the Coupe, so I'll def. be interested.

[Mj17]

Taken a few pictures to illustrate how things look on my car.

Spitfire MkIV - long-axle swing-spring with 'new' (few year-old) spring, 1" lowering block and longer studs from Canley Classics.

Currently it's the studs that fowl the cover but even if I trimmed there right down level with the nylocs if it fitted it would be darn close between cover and the nylocs.

Does this look correct?  I had a check and there is no gap between block and diff. and only a small (~1/8") gap between top of spacer and spring mid-plate, which I'd guess is just down to the lower leaf being a little thicker than the grove in the spacer is deep (see first pic.).

[rotoflex]

You might ask who else is using a 1" block.  It seems most reports I've read here are of people installing shorter ones, so there may not be many people familiar with how it looks with a 1" block in.

[sparky_spit]

That does look right. Mine is on a Mk3 Spit with short shafts and a 1500 swing spring. I used the bolts that Jigsaw supply with their blocks and so there is less above the top plate to foul on the cover. The cover does go on, just, but is in contact with the tops of the bolts and the top plate. And it no doubt contributes to the general banging and rattling I get from the rear end. I've used both 1" and 3/4" blocks and they are both like this, obviously the 1" is slightly worse than the 3/4" in this respect.

[Mj17]

Sounds like it's about right then, which is reassuring!

[Slimboyfat]

rotoflex wrote:

You might ask who else is using a 1" block.  .

Quite a few, on average we sell about 125 1" spacer's a year. Having said that it used to be a lot more when we started doing these some years ago. It's a finite market though and once it's satisfied (doesn't take long) there's a marked tailing off in sales.

[CharlieB]

How many spacer users find the spring hits the inside of the tunnel on bumps, & what do you do about it?
With a 3/4" block mine used to touch occasionally, a friend with a 1" block on a Spit 6 found it banged continuously. I guess it depends on the condition of the spring.

[sparky_spit]

CharlieB wrote:

How many spacer users find the spring hits the inside of the tunnel on bumps, & what do you do about it?
With a 3/4" block mine used to touch occasionally, a friend with a 1" block on a Spit 6 found it banged continuously. I guess it depends on the condition of the spring.

Mine (3/4" at the moment) hits quite a bit when I'm pressing on down bumpy lanes. I have to turn the stereo up until it stops.

[Pete Lewis]

On our Vit6 we used a thick truck mudflap and some tap screws , flexible enough  to accomodate the high studs and thick enough  to keep the noise out,  quite  cheap from a truck factors and they make good body mounting washers with a hole saw ..  just a thought    Pete

[rotoflex]

peterhlewis wrote:

On our Vit6 we used a thick truck mudflap and some tap screws ,

It provokes the thought of combining that with the original cover.  Use the thick mudflap as a gasket for the original cover to get some height for the cover, & the thick rubber does the sealing.  Just cut the center out of the mudflap cover.