"Berang" (berang)
04/19/2018 at 15:27 • Filed to: saab
1
16|
"Berang" (berang)
04/19/2018 at 15:27 • Filed to: saab | 1
| 16 |
Looking over and under the project Saab to make a list of parts needed, I noticed large weld blobs on the front springs. Why? I’m trying to figure out why they’re there. Can you lower a car by welding a couple of turns of the spring together? Is that what was going on? Would the heat of welding effect the temper of the spring?
???
I also noticed that the hole the tie rod passes through had two cuts made into the upper side, which makes me wonder if a PO was planning on lowering it. With these cuts here, the metal could have been bent back/up to give more clearance for the tie rod. Very strange to me though.
Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
> Berang
04/19/2018 at 15:36 |
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Sounds like they were trying to use the heat to drop it. Really dumb idea.
cmill189 - sans Volvo
> Berang
04/19/2018 at 15:37 |
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People used to lower cars by torching a loop or two and the spring would partially collapse. Maybe someone welded them together afterwords.
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Berang
04/19/2018 at 15:39 |
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The heat of welding would absolutely affect temper. Putting weld in one spot might immediately soften the spring and cause the spring to settle a bit, but it would likely be brittle on cooling and the spring wouldn’t shorten straight. Pretty much a horrible idea on down the line, if that’s what somebody was doing.
WilliamsSW
> Berang
04/19/2018 at 15:39 |
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Would the heat of welding effect the temper of the spring?
In all likelihood, yes, but without knowing the steel composition, I’m not 100% sure. I would not feel good about this, personally.
vicali
> Berang
04/19/2018 at 15:47 |
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Two of our local rally cars I thought you would like..
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Berang
> Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
04/19/2018 at 16:16 |
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Well it’s at stock height, and spacing from turn to turn is normal - but it looks like somebody tried to tie two turns together by welding a stick of steel to both of them. The blobs line up vertically.
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Berang
> cmill189 - sans Volvo
04/19/2018 at 16:18 |
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Well it’s at stock height, and spacing from turn to turn is normal - but it looks like somebody tried to tie two turns together by welding a stick of steel to both of them. The blobs line up vertically. Like somebody tried to do a fancy version of the hose clamp lowering method.
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Berang
> vicali
04/19/2018 at 16:18 |
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Nice.
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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Berang
04/19/2018 at 16:25 |
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Possibly not trying to lower. Possibly trying to fix ride height for big wheels like those coil spring blocks they use on donks, only far far worse. Why they would do that when a set of blocks is like $10, I don’t even want to know.
LOREM IPSUM
> Berang
04/19/2018 at 16:26 |
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Maybe they compressed the spring and tacked it to ghetto lower it, and either the welds eventually broke or they broke them intentionally to return the car to stock height?
*Best guess
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Berang
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
04/19/2018 at 16:34 |
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I’m going to look for a set of later springs (stiffer after ‘71) to make to keep it from sitting nose down like most of these early saabs do. Will need once I have larger tires on it.
Frenchlicker
> Berang
04/19/2018 at 18:53 |
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I’ve sadly seen that done before. However normally it’s accompanied by whatever brought the spring down to make that possible and to reinforce it. Regardless they are garbage now.
Die-Trying
> Berang
04/19/2018 at 20:03 |
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are they welding blobs, or is it slag from where someone ran a cutting torch to cut something off.
car might of had some sort of flat towing hookup underneath it that at some point got removed......
gmporschenut also a fan of hondas
> Berang
04/19/2018 at 21:52 |
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was it stock height before it was welded? and the weld was to make it stock height?
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Berang
> gmporschenut also a fan of hondas
04/19/2018 at 22:22 |
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I doubt it.
kanadanmajava1
> Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
04/20/2018 at 07:59 |
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If the heat treating would be done correctly a spring wouldn’t be any worse than from a factory. Any torch or welding equipment wouldn’t of course do this. But placing a suitably compressed spring in an oven and suitable cooking time/temperature would do.
I had a spring failure in my Kadett C during my studying years. I was quite broke then and welded the spring back together. I did by using as much current as possible from our club’s MIG welder. Then I tried to get the welded area as hot as possible so that the cooling time would be longer. The spring held together for several years of driving and it’s still in one piece in my parents’ yard.