Spring Types

Spring Types

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There are four different kinds of springs:

Coil Springs

Leaf Springs

Torsion Bars

Rubber Springs

Coil Springs:

Coil springs can look alike but give very different load ratings, Which are often colour coded for identification.

Leaf Springs:

Driving thrust transfers through the front half of the spring to the fixed shackle point

Torsion bars:

are fixed to the chassis or the sub - frame at one end & the suspension control arm at the other end.

Load on the suspension causes the bar to twist around the center & to provide the springing action.

Rubber Springs:

Increasing the load on the suspension causes the rubber cone to act like a spring being deformed.

Once the load has been removed the rubber spring retracts to it's proper shape.

Suspension Principles

Suspension Principles

Principles Of Suspension:

Sprung mass - is the vehicles parts that rest on the springs, such as the body, frame & the engine.

Unsprung mass - Is the parts of the vehicle that sit or connect around the vicinity of the suspension. Meaning they are the parts that are not supported by the springs, Such as the steering, suspension, wheels & brake assemblies.

Suspension Force:

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Leaf Springs

Leaf spring applied force by flattening out under load.

Coil springs are designed to absorb the force of impact by twisting.

And torsion bars are designed twist around there center.

Unsprung Weight:

Is parts of the vehicle that are not supported by the vehicle suspension.

Dampening:

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Is the part that prevents or reduces the bouncing effect of oscillation.

This is where shock absorbers are used most often.

Body Chassis Type

Body Chassis Type

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About:

The chassis is the under body of the vehicle, to which the upper body is mounted on along with the wheels & the rest of the vehicle.

Ladder Chassis:

The top picture is known as the ladder chassis, these were designed in the early 60's & used on nearly all automotive vehicles.

Advantages - Just that these are cheap & are easy to produce.

Disadvantages - Because the middle part of the this structure is very low compared to other designs & makes it very hard to deal with the heavy loads or bumps.

Backbone Chassis:

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The backbone consist's of long tubular centre piece to join the front rear suspension together. The picture above is of a double backbone chassis, instead of a round centre piece it has two solid rectangular pieces join the front & back!

Advantages - Strong enough for small sport cars & is easy to produce & cheap.

Disadvantages - This design is unfortunately not safe in a crash, The back bone does not provide protection against side impact crash

Tubular Space Frame:

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Tubular space frame consist of many circular sections of tubes & can also consist of of square shaped ones. The square shaped tubes are made to join sections together easier & the circular tubes are designed for maximum strength. Having so many cross section gives the space frame strength all round.

Advantages - Very strong in every direction.

Disadvantages - Its very complex & costly time consuming to be built.

Brake Calliper

Brake Calliper

The brake calliper:

The brake callipers would have to be one of the vehicles most important components out of all the brake components.

These are fitted over the brake rotor like a clamp & push against the pads to slow the vehicle down.

There are two types of callipers - Floating & fixed.

Floating Callipers:

These are when the pads secured to the body of the calliper between the piston & the rotor, The side between the body & the rotor.

Fixed Callipers:

These have two or more pistons on either side of the housing & are crossed drilled to allow the fluid to flow to all pistons evenly.

Off car vehicle testing:
Dissembling the calliper & testing all components.
(Left & below) is of the piston which pushes against the pad, the fluid pressure builds from behind.

We are looking for anything that could possibly cause the fluid to leak out from behind out on to the pads or loosing pressure.

Deep scratches
Broken/ chips from the end

Using the vernier calliper we then measure the  inside of the calliper to make sure that inside hasn't been worn from the piston moving back & forth. 

The same is done with the piston as it was with the calliper. We need to check specs to make sure it pass's.

Once all seals, calliper, piston are all checked & everything is fine.
Our one was not & needed a new piston & a couple of seal

Drum Brakes

Drum Brakes

The pic above is of a drum brake that has been stripped of everything inside.

There are 3 types of brake drums!

The drum brakes consist of the following components:

2 x Shoe's - 1 x Rear Shoe, 1 x Front shoe

1 x Parking Brake

1 x Parking Brake Cable & Spring

1 x Wheel Cylinder

2 x Brake Shoe Tension Springs

2 x brake Shoe retaining Clips

The above is a Servo Drum Brake System

There is also Symplex & Duplex

The video on the left is of Hans our tutor showing us how the brake drum cover comes off. These tend to stick a bit & may need a bit of a tap to loosen it.

To the right we have the drum brake is fully dismantled, Both shoes, clips & all springs have been pulled off. After everything is off then we can start measuring all components. 

(Left) Here the brake line has been clamp 

(Right) loosing the wheel cylinder so we are able to do of car testing on it!

(Left) Once I had pulled the drum apart, me & my partner had checked everything that needed checking then my partner put the drum back together.