On a non-seven type vehicle, instead of having a trailing arm and a spring, why not make the trailing arm out of spring steel and fasten it rigidly to the chassis. It would be a bit like a leaf spring, except mounted at one end only. You then fit a damper without a coil spring.

What would be the pros and cons of this?

could you weld the spring steel to the chassis.

welding stressed spring steel to mild is asking for trouble, (i think)

I would guess you wouldn't get very far before the weld fails

if you mounted the sprig steel to the chssis in some other way which didn't envolve welding eg bolting, I think you would have more luck. you would still have to provide lateral restraint though

It might work but it won't be better than well set up irs or live axle or de-dion i would think.

sorry

Look under a MK AH Sprite or MK2 Jag

OK forget welding. It was just an after thought anyway.

What if the spring steel was shaped to provide lateral support in some way?

Look up quarter elliptical springs/suspension.
The original frogeye sprite used this system (bolted not welded). As do a lot of American 4x4 rock crawlers.

[edit] Bah beaten by the quicker typist

[Edited on 11/12/06 by iank]

hmm quarter elliptical leaf spring , used around the 1920s i believe !!

I used to own a sprog-eyed fright - I still remember being overtaken by my hubcaps after a particularly bad pothole... that rear suspension was HARD!

David

[Edited on 11/12/06 by David Jenkins]

1/4 ellipitics provide pretty crappy axle location, so you'd still want a panhard or watts linkage. The you have to redseign the frame as you would be putting the main suspension loads into a different area. And after you'de done all that, you have an antiquated system that would require bespoke parts to tune.

Stick with coil overs and you have a massive selection of shocks and springs off the shelf.