AC ACE Dummy Leaf Springs
As the Hawk kits use MGB suspension the look of a real leaf spring in the engine bay is tough to achieve and in most cases you will not see one. Stuart of the 289Register made it work. Here's his story below. This is something that we will be doing on our ACE as the leaf spring supports the cooling fan shaft bracket.
The Spring leaves are made out of 50mm X 3mm aluminium flat and the support was made from 3mm and 2mm sheet steel. It was made to bolt onto the 4 threaded holes on the front face of the cross braces between the front suspension mounts.
The leaves were bent to achieve the correct form laid on top of each other to make a pack and some 10mm X 3mm aluminium was bent around Spring pack and riveted to the pack to simulate the clips on a real Spring.
2 pieces of aluminium channel clamp the spring pack to the support with 4 Allen cap head bolts. The support bracket kind of replicates the front Spring tower on an AC and straddles the cross bracing and the bolts go through the front face through some welded on spacers to screw into the 4 chassis mounted threaded holes. The whole thing was powder coated to match the chassis.
It's not really a complicated thing and is designed to unbolt by simply removing the 4 mounting bolts. I imagine that it would need to be bespoke to individual applications.
The only thing you'd need to work out is the spacing both in the height and also the spacer thickness to position it. If my engine wasn't positioned where it was and my rad fan wasn't in the way, it could have been made to link up the suspension mounts. But on mine it isn't in line and as such it just extends from one side of the inner wings to the other.
Photos were taken of the original uprights and I made something that bolts on and sort of looks the part. It wouldn't be possible to copy the original as the chassis is different.
The leaves were bent to achieve the correct form laid on top of each other to make a pack and some 10mm X 3mm aluminium was bent around Spring pack and riveted to the pack to simulate the clips on a real Spring.
2 pieces of aluminium channel clamp the spring pack to the support with 4 Allen cap head bolts. The support bracket kind of replicates the front Spring tower on an AC and straddles the cross bracing and the bolts go through the front face through some welded on spacers to screw into the 4 chassis mounted threaded holes. The whole thing was powder coated to match the chassis.
It's not really a complicated thing and is designed to unbolt by simply removing the 4 mounting bolts. I imagine that it would need to be bespoke to individual applications.
The only thing you'd need to work out is the spacing both in the height and also the spacer thickness to position it. If my engine wasn't positioned where it was and my rad fan wasn't in the way, it could have been made to link up the suspension mounts. But on mine it isn't in line and as such it just extends from one side of the inner wings to the other.
Photos were taken of the original uprights and I made something that bolts on and sort of looks the part. It wouldn't be possible to copy the original as the chassis is different.
The original leaf spring - From an AC ACECA
