Springs, Part 4: Finally, some work gets done.

So, I've been away from the keyboard for a while. But things have been a bit busy at the House of Speed. It's time to catch up on things online.


If you remember, I was wondering about spring sizes and the such. The two important things to figure out are:

- spring rate
- spring free length.

Once we decide on spring rate, we can compute the required spring free length using the math I've discussed in previous posts.

Online, there are two main schools of though regarding springs:

a) Go with stiff rates, and keep the stock sway bars
b) Go with medium stiffness rates, and make your sway bars heavier.

(I'll explain sway bars in a future post.)

The problem I run into is that most folks seem to favor a racy, stiff, ready-for-racetrack setup. In all honesty, I do not want to race the Alfa; I just want to drive the car around during the weekends, and hopefully not have to work too much on it (once the thing is ready to run, of course.)

So I am of the school of though of "go with springs as soft as possible, as long as the front of the car does not bottom out too badly, and the handling is not too numb". The current springs allow the car to scrape with the ground under heavy breaking, so any replacement springs should probably be stiffer (to prevent nose dive) while keeping a similar ride height (lowered cars tend to scrape on the ground more than non-lowered counterparts.)

So, what what kind of springs do I have in the car, currently? Well, the best way to find out is to remove them and see what I've got!

At first, this sounds a bit scary, since you have to deal with fairly stiff springs (450+ lb/inch; for comparison, my Miata's front springs are 375 lb/in.) And compressed springs are dangerous - if they break loose while you are undoing things, they can get launched like a projectile and hit stuff and people. Dangerous stuff.

Fortunately, there is a cheap and fairly safe way of dealing with this, as explained here: http://www.centerlinealfa.com/tips/images/installation/spring_install.pdf

Basically, this method involves using two 12" threaded rods to replace two of the bolts that hold the spring pan in place, removing the other two bolts that hold the spring pan in place, and slowly lowering the spring pan with the remaining threaded rods until the spring comes free. I used this method, with two variations:

- I used three rods.
- I greased the rods once the upper double nuts were tightened, to prevent any wear on the threaded rod (and potential binding or jamming up.)

The extra third rod was a bit redundant, but it did make me feel a bit safer. It does add to the total time it takes to undo each spring, since you have to do 50% more work (3 rods vs 2 rods.) I also highly recommend adding some grease, as jackscrews will wear quite rapidly and either jam or break the thread (airplanes have crashed due to poorly greased jackscrews - no kidding!)

The whole process took about 1.5 hours per side. I was taking it easy at first, learning the process and all. I suspect once you learn the ropes, you can bring this down to about an hour (with three rods - probably less if you use two rods.)

I did make a mistake: I forgot to loosen the antisway bar at first. That added a about 30 minutes worth of agravation, but I lowered the opposite side enough to loosen up the sway bar and removed it. After that, everything was cake.

Once you are done undoing the springs, you are left with a lower spring pan (which is secured to the lower A-Arm of the suspension,) a spring, and upper and lower rubber isolator pads (two per side.) These rubber pads prevent metal-to-metal contact between the spring, the chassis, and the spring pan. This helps prevent squeaks, and makes the ride a bit more comfortable.

Well, both spring pans were very dirty, and a bit rusty. Plus, the paint and undercoating overspray made things look nasty. On the passenger side, the lower pan had about 1" worth of dirt, and you could barely see the rubber isolator buried in all that dirt! On the driver side, however, the rubber isolators were completely missing (both of them!) Hmmmm...

The spring themselves were dirty and a bit rusty, too. All the overspray covered any present marking (e.g. spring type, part no., etc.) So, I went ahead and measured the length of springs, and they came out to about 12.5 inches. This matches the length of the stock springs. I am starting to think the springs are definetely stock. Go figure.

So, assuming these are stock springs (about 450 lb/in), we know a medium-rate spring (600-800 lb/in) would help with the bottoming-out issues. This is a bit reassuring - I was concerned the already-mounted springs were of the 1100lb/in variety, and any decrease in rates would make the car more likely to bottom out.

Next up - the front suspension comes apart.