Frame / Springs: I have inserts in my front springs

[PlainBrownR2]

A few days ago, I was looking under the car to check out the frame, and I came across these in the front springs:





As far as I can tell, they're aftermarket spacers so the springs don't compress in that part of the spring. I can probably bet these are still V8 springs. I know for a few of you it's nothing new to see these aftermarket trinkets, but these aren't present in my other vehicles, and if Studebaker wanted to raise the front end up with the springs, in most cases they changed out the springs .

[sals54]

After market for sure. The down side is that they can eject themselves when traversing bumps, i.e. railroad tracks, at high speeds. On another note: Is this car a daily driver? If so, you may want to check out that brake hose. Looks a little dicey to me.

[stude1964]

Yes,the rubber in there is after market. I agree -definitely not a good sign on that brake hose! Rob in PA.

[PlainBrownR2]

Regarding the rest of the car, believe me, it will be a lonnnnnggg while before it sees a road again. Much like the '55, I'll have to disassemble the whole car, including all of the brake and fuel lines in it, because they are well past being usable. The car has been sitting for a long time, because every rubber hose and line on the car is either rusting or dry rotted. It's not a big issue though, a couple trips to NAPA or Farm and Fleet for some new lengths of that green poly steel line and some brass unions will take care of the steel line, and depending on the condition of the rubber hoses under the Commander, if it's not in too bad a shape, I'll probably pull those to replace the flex lines under the Daytona, since they were in regular service until last year.

[jclary]

The first time I ever saw those spring inserts was back in the early '60's. I think they were advertised as a way to "stiffen" your springs to improve handling performance or to restore weakened springs. However, my thoughts were that they mainly messed up a purposefully engineered suspension and probably resulted in the opposite of the desired result. I remember some of my friends cramming these things in their front springs thinking they gave their cars a "cooler" stance.

Like many aftermarket items strategically placed near the check out counter at the parts store...these little "quick-fix" items mostly mask other problems. I have seen coil springs broken where these things were placed. Some are tapered to give you higher lift the more you turn them in. Any time I have found these in a car I have bought...I remove them.

[Mike Sal]

These gadgets were used at many used car dealers to push up the front end when the springs had given up the ghost. I've seen, and used, dozens of them over the years.

When I got my '55 president sedan home, I looked under it to see why I scrapped bottom a couple of times. There were 4 of those in each spring. I hope to have the new springs installed prior to the meet in St. Louis this year.

[PlainBrownR2]

The first time I ever saw those spring inserts was back in the early '60's. I think they were advertised as a way to "stiffen" your springs to improve handling performance or to restore weakened springs. However, my thoughts were that they mainly messed up a purposefully engineered suspension and probably resulted in the opposite of the desired result. I remember some of my friends cramming these things in their front springs thinking they gave their cars a "cooler" stance.

Like many aftermarket items strategically placed near the check out counter at the parts store...these little "quick-fix" items mostly mask other problems. I have seen coil springs broken where these things were placed. Some are tapered to give you higher lift the more you turn them in. Any time I have found these in a car I have bought...I remove them.

I'll probably leave mine in for now, not just for the historical nature of the things and I've never seen them before, but also because I hate working on coil suspensions. There's only a couple of them, and they are on the driver and passenger side, on the outer portion of the springs. I'm betting these were put in to stiffen or raise the suspension up, or at the very least, changing the geometry of the coil spring a bit and improving the handling by taking the "springiness" out that side of the spring, and keeping the tire planted a little better. In short, it looks like they prop up the outside of the coil spring. The way they are positioned, if you take a turn around a corner at an intersection on these things, they reduce the outside corner of the car from wanting to pitch while it's turning. I had this incessant problem in the Commander, mostly from the design of the suspension system itself. Put it through an intersection at anything above 15-20 mph, and its like being in an old cartoon where the car's body goes one direction, but the tires are hanging on to the street for all it's worth. It wanted to plow through the turn, rather than follow it. Anyway, due to the age and the design of the suspension system, they're great in straight lines, but they don't do well in a slalom . I can't imagine the springs being in that bad a shape, because the car's been parked since at least the 70's, unless they were taking this vehicle out to the Baja 1000 every year . With me, I have a pretty wide tolerance if the handling is bad because of bad coil springs. I can handle the car wandering a little bit at road speed, I had it in the Commander for years, but if it becomes unstable, or tries to put me in a ditch, then they'll probably come out, and whatever is causing the problems will then be fixed.

[hausdok]

Back in the 1970's I worked for various car dealers and every once in a while they'd bring an older car in from the lot and have myself or one of the other guy install those to perk up the front end. Sometimes they'd have us add little coil springs on top of the rear axle when the leaf springs were sagging but unbroken. They slipped over the bumper above the axle and clamped right to the rear axle with a set of U-bolts.

[SN-60]

Years ago, when Studes were still in regular use, it was not uncommon to see these aluminum 'coil spring spacers' twisted into tired Stude front springs......ESPECIALLY on '56 Golden Hawks!!!!!

[Warren Webb]

Dont forget also that Studebaker was probably the first to use variable rate coil springs in the front. By where the spacers were placed it would determine if the spring would increase the rate early or later during its compression.

[Sam Ensley]

My '64 conv. has those spacers in the front springs. I assumed it was because the springs were old and tired and ordered new springs from SIL, or maybe it was SASCO, a few years back. There are still in the trunk. I don't like to work on suspension either. I am about to take the front end off and paint the car. At that time I will install the new springs. I just hope they won't raise the front-end too high.

[JoeHall]

Years ago, when Studes were still in regular use, it was not uncommon to see these aluminum 'coil spring spacers' twisted into tired Stude front springs......ESPECIALLY on '56 Golden Hawks!!!!!

The black 56J I had in high school in the late 1960s had several of those in the coil springs. Kinda like putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound.