spring fling

[F3BZ]

after 4 weekends of putzing around with this cobbled up spring tester i thought i'd start to get some hard values for the various lowering and stock springs. unfortunately the china made bathroom scale couldn't take the pressure. besides, it looked like i would've reached the 300 lb. limit of the scale if i compressed it beyond the installed height of 10 inches (front) let alone any further compression. i'm going to look for a good scale with a higher capacity. about 500 lb. should handle it. i'll probably have to re-frame the new scale unless it happens to be the same size as this one. when i do, i plan to comparison test the H&R and FMS lowering and also STOCK coils front and rear inch by inch to get some real world numbers for every inch of compression. watch this space.

[F3BZ]

[FestYboy]

you could rig a cantilever system to take your measurements at 1/2 or 1/4 value... just a thought seeing that high capacity scales are kinda 'spensive.... and this way you could use a digital scale without fear of breaking it.

[Festevil3]

Very clean aparatus you have there, look at harbor frieght, they have the exact scale you need I believe

[bravekozak]

I would like to ask your permission to send a picture of your low budget Instron to a couple of lab friends of mine.

[Bert]

Nice! And a perfect way to scientifically help dispel some of the 'biggest fish' stories that always seem to abound in these forums.

[F3BZ]

ya brave, go right ahead. but i'm going to the patent office tomorrow so's i can make tons off the royalties.
i will check out harbor freight this weekend but i swear i already looked for a lardo scale there. maybe their website. that will be basically my only expense in this since everything else was borrowed permanently from work and the 2 4" PVC end caps were dirt cheap. i got a healthy respect for the potential energy these have just compressing it to the installed height so i also need to rig uo a safety cable to the spring. anybody know what the length of the "installed height" of the rear springs would be since they aren't captured in a hat? i'll just measure the ones in my 4 festivas and take an average.