Spitfire rear spring advice

[cliff.b]

Under the car today trying to see if I can make the exhaust less susceptible to hitting things and I tried to see if the rear suspension has a lowering block fitted.

I could see this which looks like a piece of metal between the fixed spring and the swing leaves. Just wondering if this is normal, a typical lowering block fitment or something else?

[Colin Lindsay]

It's normal, that's the lower plate of the spring 'box'. It goes between the lower leaf and the rest.

 

 

[cliff.b]

17 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:

It's normal, that's the lower plate of the spring 'box'. It goes between the lower leaf and the rest.

 

 

Ah, yes, that does pretty much look like what I could see peering up from underneath mine.

It does seem rather low at the rear though so maybe the spring needs replacing.

[Mjit]

There's not classic lowering block but it does look like there's something odd in there.  The spring box lower plate should just sit between the lowest and second lowest spring leaves (it's basicually just a flat piece of metal with a hole in it that sits over the other end of the spring locator 'peg' you can see poking out below the spring in Colin's picture).  Yours seems to have a piece of old rubber or something in there too, which is why you have such a big gab between the lower plate and the top of the diff.  The only piece of rubber around there should be above the top leaf/under the spring box lid.  And I don't think that's goinig to change the ride height, as the spring eye bushes are attached to the end of the lower leaf and that's going to be in the same position with/without that pad (classic lowering blocks go below the bottom leaf).

[NonMember]

2 hours ago, Mjit said:

And I don't think that's goinig to change the ride height

I think that stray bit of rubber, if indeed that's what it is, will lower the ride height a bit. Not sure how much but the upper leaves are all raised a bit from the diff so they won't apply their force until the suspension is more compressed than normal, so it will have some effect.

[Colin Lindsay]

Don't forget that the spring plate - the flat plate that goes through the spring - often does not sit tight on top of the diff due to the thickness of the bottom leaf. It's flat so will bolt tight to the bottom leaf but if the leaf is anyway thicker than the groove in the top of the diff there'll be a gap between the plate and the diff casing. In that top photo it does look like there's something there but it's hard to make out, but from the visible gap at the edges of the leaf spring 'box' it doesn't look to be affecting the seat too much. Maybe someone has put the spring pad in the wrong place?