Community Forums

House Husband · 12-29-2020, 05:35 PM

The additional stress imposed on the lower mount will probably break the mount in the future. That piece of spring material has been known to break with only one shock mounted to it.

Richard

stew1 · 12-30-2020, 11:12 AM

Air bags do a great job of controlling roll and does help with ride

TeJay · 12-30-2020, 03:55 PM

stew1,

I agree with your opinion concerning air bags. We have been told enough times to understand that adding another spring (Air Bags) in series with the leaf springs is adding more spring rate to the system and should not help with the ride comfort. Easy for some to say but those who have tired it have a different opinion even if it's against all the math.

I'm not the only one who believes air bags do help if only in a small way. In addition they will definately help if your current leaf springs are sagging.

I love the way John McKinley put it. Go into your shop and grab a 2' long 1/2" steel rod and smack the top of your anvil (or acquivelent) as hard as you can. After the swelling on your hand goes down do the same thing but put a cushioned rubber grip on the handle end of the steel rod. The damage to your hand will be significantly less.

Richard,

I have not heard of any F-53 shock mounts coming apart. Did I miss something? Can you direct me to any posts or articles concerning this breakage? Before I jump to conclusions I'd like more information.

House Husband · 12-31-2020, 08:15 AM

The 3 failures that I'm aware of are, 2 members on the old Yahoo Bounder forum and a personal failure on my Bounder 2 years ago. Not sure why but a 3 were on the right side. Fixtures were manufactured in custom spring shops.

Richard

TeJay · 12-31-2020, 12:42 PM

It sounds like the bottom shock bolt tube weld is breaking loose from the top of the leaf spring. Since it is welded that kind of brings in human error. Welding onto spring steel can be an issue as the heat changes things with the metal. I'm sure it can be done successfully but!!!

When the weather gets a bit warmer I'm going to work out a clamp that will go on top of the round bolt mount and clamp on the bottom side of the leaf spring. I'll use some 1/2" thick straps with high grade bolts running top to bottom. It would be similar to how a U-bolt holds leaf springs on.

Since the bolt is coming across on top of the leaf spring on the outside I'll have to insert some spacers to raise up and put pressure on the bottom of the shocks which should give the shear area much more support and hold everything in place. It won't be that difficult to do.

jharrell · 12-31-2020, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TeJay

[Go into your shop and grab a 2' long 1/2" steel rod and smack the top of your anvil (or acquivelent) as hard as you can. After the swelling on your hand goes down do the same thing but put a cushioned rubber grip on the handle end of the steel rod. The damage to your hand will be significantly less.

What is in between your hand and the steel rod? Nothing, no space, no air, then you add a rubber cushion in between, it is in series, the rubber is softer than the steel.

What is where you install an airbag? About 3 inches of open air and 3 inches of jounce bumper. The open air its softer than the compressed air in a air bag, the jounce bumper, not sure, depends on the bag and the psi in it. The air bag is parallel to the leafs not in series! For at least the first 3 inches of travel the air bag is stiffer / harder than the open air it replaced, this should be obvious.

Peter M · 01-01-2021, 06:11 AM

TeJay glad to hear of your positive results. I would suggest quad shocks on the rear. Look at Henderson for mounting of the R quad shocks. My initial install of Koni FSD at all corners yielded positive results for me. The upgrade to Quad Koni's on my 24 K chassis made significant improvements.

House Husband · 01-01-2021, 09:45 AM

Well maybe Ford fixed the lower mount issue.
On the 460 F53s the spring material is just heated, rolled and retempered. Then clamped on top of the spring. No welding.

Richard

TeJay · 01-01-2021, 10:05 AM

Richard,

I may have spoken to soon. Maybe they are not welded. With temps in the low 30's but not freezing it's to darn cold and wet to go out and look. If yours was a rolled part of the leaf spring I'm wondering how could they break unless the spring broke?

I have to go out and do a small bit of welding today so I'll brave getting wet and see what I can see and let you know. Ya got my interest up now!!! I won't sleep until I know exactly what's going on under the lower shock mount.

MarvinG · 01-01-2021, 05:18 PM

On my ‘96 F53 chassis it is rolled leaf spring as Richard mentioned. I know because I have a bolt frozen on the left lower mount that I’m am struggling with since I started changing my front Bilsteins to Konis this week. (As so many of us, dodging the cold and precipitation, so that one bolt is still stuck in the rolled leaf spring.)

TeJay · 01-01-2021, 05:19 PM

Richard,

You are correct. There's a piece of leaf spring rolled and strapped to the lower leaf spring. I don't know why I thought it was welded but glad it's not.

That will make it easier to make something that will strap that piece of spring steel to the bottom of the leaf spring. With the bottom piece going all the way across to include some shimmed pieces which will go up to the bottom of the shocks providing some shear support. This will not be a big deal to make.

House Husband · 01-02-2021, 09:03 AM

TeJay,

That clamp should be good preventive maintenance. Maybe I'll have a look see at my lower shock mounts as soon as I finish the last 220 miles of our drive to Quartzsite, today. Let snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Wonder how many things Ford hasn't changed in 31 years of making the F53?

Richard

MarvinG · 01-09-2021, 05:04 PM

So you would be increasing the support of the bottom mount of the dual shocks with no worries about the top?

TeJay · 01-09-2021, 05:45 PM

MarvinG,

Hi and thanks for the heads up. Go back to my pics in posts 1 & 2. Pull them up one at a time and hit the magnification. The top mount is a cast iron I-beam sort of mount. No I don't have the specifications on it's design and weight capacity but it looks very stout. Am I concerned? Not really! Should I be? Maybe so I guess we'll see.

If I'm correct in my thinking by adding another shock at each front mount I'm adding compression resistance of the shock. I don't know how to calculate how much extra weight I'm expecting the mounts to hold but it's only as much as the given weight of a shock compression.

Lets say I hit a bump that exerts a pressure of 100 lbs. How much of that is transfered to the mounts if the shock only resists to a pressure of say 50 lbs then compresses. So in that case I'm only adding 50 lbs of pressure to the mounts. I'd also assume that each mount only carries 1/2 of the extra compression resistance or weight. Maybe that's wrong but maybe not!!

I'm sure others out there with the engineering background will let me know if my thinking is correct or not. I don't know. All I did was add the shocks and drove it. So far nothing had broken or bent.

I suppose one could study the quad mount shock kits to see how they support the extra resistance.

Thanks for asking and we'll see where this leads us.