fiberglass leafsprings?

anybody runnin 'glass leaves?

i remember teraflex made some (for yj i think), but haven't herd anything about them since.....

dude has a tj featured in "4wheel drive & sport utility" wit fiberglass leaves form a chevy astrovan in the back. he said that before tj, he had an xj for a rig, thot the coil/leaf setup worked well so he adapted to his tj....i think that's pretty funny/cool.

so, i ask 'cauz i wud like more flex in the rear than my rubi 5.5" leaf/rockkrawler 2" boomerangs allow, BUT proly never gona invest in a rearcoil setup. am thinkn this mite be a reasonably cheap/ez mod. any thots/ideas/concerns/experiences???? thanx -Sean

I read that too. I'm interested in any feeback this post gets.

ive only ever heard of the carbon fiber leafs like they run in the vettes with the mono leaf

I have not heard much on this subject either but I can remember some discussion on this in the past and it seems they didn't hold up well IIRC.

drknyt said:

ive only ever heard of the carbon fiber leafs like they run in the vettes with the mono leaf

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IIRC Vettes used a fiberglass leaf for many years, not sure if they switched to carbon for the C6 maybe.

Of course they did, to jack up the price, lol.
Maybe people will start using the plastic pistons now too.

Johnnie Walker said:

Of course they did, to jack up the price, lol.
Maybe people will start using the plastic pistons now too.

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I acctuly heard that some of the new weed wackers and stuff use plastic pistons. idk if its true, but thats word on the street.

no personal experience but all i have heard about is bending them and messin with pinion angles and breakin driveshafts and u joints n such.

maybe if you had a traction bar they wouldnt be a bad option

Curious about the Astro van suspension. Anybody know if it's conventional axle on spring? Traverse spring and torque arms?

Unless you can get lucky and find a stock application that just happens to work right for you, and you can get them from a wrecking yard (like the Astro van, apparently), high quality composite glass springs are going to be pretty expensive.
Also, just a hunch, but a 'glass spring in a hi-flex installation probably isn't going to last very long. I know they ran them in the c-5 'vette to save weight, but a vette only has 2-3" suspension travel.
The problem is a glass spring is a composite, just like a glass fender. The spring action comes from putting the glass fibers on the short side in tension, and putting the binder matrix in compression.(like reinforced concrete.) Problems occur when the binder on the short side of the spring is in tension(with the glass) and eventually starts to fatigue crack. Eventually the glass fibers start to break at the cracks, and the spring fails. The more you flex it, the faster and worse it cracks. Axle wrap, of course, torques the spring the wrong way.
If your goal is an inexpensive, supple suspension setup, relatively exotic materials in the springs isn't the cheap route.
If you're running poly spring bushings, try switching back to rubber. Rubber bushings wear out fast off road, but flex better then poly.
Revolver shackles will free up the springs, and add a bunch of droop.
A somewhat more expensive option is running flex joints instead of bushings in the spring eyes. Supposed to flex like mad off road, but you loose a bunch of stability(especially bad on-road)
Probably the most expensive "off the shelf" answer is running a custom spring pack from Deaver or National spring, something with 8 or 10 thin leaves instead of 4 quarter inch thick leaves will flex a lot more. They're expensive, but they work great.

I had them, hmm about 7 year ago on a YJ, I think they were called fibersomething... firberflex? or something like that. They were flexy but the composite was very weak. I think could probably be decent for a rig that does not see much rocks or is very light.

They were pricey back then I would think they are still pricey. They looked like a big monoleaf spring, and they were very light. I swapped in some of their monoleaf after what was also a not so great design.

No experience on teh astro springs, what is their length?

IIRC, the old thread brought up the problem of scraping fiberglass springs over rocks. Probably not a problem on 'vettes or Astro vans.

Skyjacker sold those for the YJs I thought a few years ago.

My concern is torque induced spring wrap on a standard leaf setup. Now just put that single leaf on a setup where a multi leaf pack was with no 4 links or no traction bar or anything to control wrap and I'd be concerned about snapping it.

I think their a gimmick IMO. The Vettes my 81 and 08 that I use to have were a transverse mono leaf setup and they have a multi link suspension setup to locate the rear wheels so they have something to take the loads off the spring i.e the spring is just used for suspension-Not locating the axle like the XJs. So they aren't exposed to the same type forces.

I wouldn't risk it.

all BlaK sees is rocks, so much for this idea.........jus a thot, thanx for your input guys!

screw those revolvers......junk

I had a 93ish ranger that had fiberglass mono leafs and it had the worst axle wrap that i had ever seen. Im surprised that I didnt brake anything it was that bad.