Leaf Springs with Ladder Bars

[Zach Carter]

Ok guys please school me on what issues I'm going to have running ladders bars on the 68 Nova. I picked up a set of NOS NMW ladder bars. I have them installed but it really pre loaded to springs. Theres not much movement just pushing on the back of the car checking the spring flex.

Note: This car is weekend cruiser to work and a few car shows. Thanks for any input in advance.

[markjohnson]

That's how "street"-type ladder bars work.....by binding up the rear suspension because of the two different arcs of the leaf springs vs. the ladder bars. Eventually, they WILL rip the spring perches off from the rear axle housing tubes. The only way to stop this is to cut off the stock rear axle housing perches and weld on leaf spring "floaters" onto the tubes. Unfortunately, these floaters then put a lot of stress onto the front ladder bar mount which isn't exactly very stout on these street-type ladder bars. I'm sorry if there's not a lot of good news in this answer but these are the reasons that you don't see these street type ladder bars on fast cars. A good set of quality traction bars has always been the best way to improving leaf spring suspensions with even a decent ride quality when you have the proper snubber gap.

[markjohnson]

Let me just add that if you really have your heart set on running these things the best two things you could do would be to weld a small square gusset(on on the front, one on the rear) of the leaf spring perches and also replace the "T" bolts for the leaf spring pads with quality U-bolts. These two modifications should make the perches a little stronger and prevent them from ripping off the housing tubes. If that happens, believe me, it makes a mess of things.

[Salvatore]

Ladder bars are a coil spring application. Like Mark said go with a quality leaf spring traction bar.

[RichSchmidt]

About 20 years ago my good friend and old shop partner Jimmy had an a 12 bolt with those ladder bars on it,an 80 Malibu body with the frame rails notched,a burning desire to join the 2 and not 2 nickles to rub together.After cutting and welding the stock upper control arms to get the pion angle right but still left with worn out suspention bushings and socks,we had the bright idea of taking the ladder bars and drilling the front to accept a traction bar snubber.We then sheet metal screwed 2 blocks of wood to the floor of the car,positioned the ladder bars about 1" from the frame and zapped the bars right to the axle tubes.Car ran like a scalded dog and we got our first lesson on suspention design.They really should put a minimum age limit on how old you can be to buy a stick welder.

[69 Post Sedan]

Here's a picture of a Nova with ladder bars on it. It was for sale a while ago on this site. I like the look but after purchasing my car, which had ladder bars on it, I found out from a LOT of people that they are horrible on the suspension. Needless to say I took them off for multiple reasons. So, in my opinion, if you want "the look"...go for it.

But, if you are really going to POUND ON IT, I would either put good leaf spring traction bars http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CEE-2101/ or the Slide-A-Link traction bars: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CEE-2100/

[Zach Carter]

Thanks for the info guys. I guess they are coming off. I've got too much money invested in this project and don't want to have to fix broken rear end parts. I really like the look however I must say. I guess at the end of the day I do want something that is enjoyable to drive. I'm trying to stick with period "Day 2" components however. Does anyone know which Lakewood Traction Bars Dave Belk has on his Nova in the picture below?

[Zach Carter]

Well..... I was going to wait till the car was finished to post pictures, however I thought you guys might want to see what she looked like so far.

[WILMASBOYL78]

I believe the correct Lakewood bar would be the Traction Action. We have an original set on our 1970 TH400 L78...here is a pic.

wilma

I second what Mark Johnson said about ladder bars and beefing the spring perches. And like Mark said, once they decide to depart due to the bind, and rip the rear end out of the car, it gets pretty ugly.

Years ago, Moroso had a ladder bar with a sliding segment on the nose. It was designed to mount on a set of frame connectors. Supposedly this forward mount slider helped a bit, but I'm sure everything had to be perfectly square for it to work right (not an easy task on a unit-body car). I had a few customers run them when I had a speed shop. One of the guys though, swapped back to a set of extended slapper bars and the can ran better (quicker). Some of the old guys around here will remember how we used to extend the nose of the Lakewood slapper bars so that the snubber would be closer to , or under the spring eye. Competition Engineering's slapper bar is (I think) a bit longer than the old Lakewood. It also includes the J-bolt kit. Rattle can it black and you likely won't able to tell the difference between it and the vintage Lakewoods (at least in my neck of the woods, it was pretty common to paint those screaming yellow Lakewood bars black).

Have fun

Wayne Scraba