4×4 Pickup Leaf Springs for Pickup Truck Rear Suspension

Due to the sheer amount of metal layered together, leaf springs offer a large amount of support between the wheels, axles and the car’s chassis. They can take huge vertical loads being applied to them due to their tight-knit structure, hence why heavy duty industries still use them. Vertical loading is also distributed throughout the length of the leaf spring rather than acutely through a small spring and damper, which can potentially create a concentrated force too large for the suspension to handle. In a car, damping can be an extremely important characteristic. If the suspension is under-damped, the car will wallow and bounce around well after hitting any bump or pot hole in the road. This was a significant characteristic in cars that used helical springs before the dawn of the shock absorber and was disadvantageous to cars when driven at any real pace. Leaf springs coped much better with vehicle damping due to the friction between each plate of steel which made the response time after a vertical flex in the suspension much quicker, thus making for a much more controllable car. Leaf springs were simple in design and cheap to produce in comparison with the early springs and dampers therefore it was the go-to setup once cars were being fully mass produced to ensure reliability while keeping costs low. Carhome was the simplest design of the lot, using only one leaf of spring steel which tapered from thick in the middle to thin at the edges (known as parabolic leaf springs) to distribute the vertical loads appropriately. A single leaf setup could only however be used on extremely lightweight vehicles due to the lack of strength within the bar.