Estourer springs - Rear springs different

BBLongman

New Member
Do any other estourer owners out there have any experience of changing the rear springs. I've just removed them as part of the restoration and have found that they are of a much heavier pattern than a pair of saloon springs that I've got lying around.

Unfortunately one seems to have sagged slightly as it's about 1/2 inch shorter than the orher.

They have around 7 1/2 or so working coils compared to the 5 1/2 of the standard spring and are of a thicker section. Does this match any of the aftermarket rear springs offered by Weekly or Wadhams? I note they list theirs as being heavy duty.

I can't see that there is that much extra weight in the back of the estate compared to the saloon to warrant the considerable extra beef apparant in the springs. The other possibility i've considered is that they are towing springs as the remains of a towbar were present. Anyone had experience of these?

Bennet
 
My estourer had standard rear springs but with shock absorbers with helper springs fitted. I guess this is a possibility if you can't source heavier duty springs.
 
The extra roof section, and to a greater extent the extra glass areas will add quite a bit of weight, don't forget the saloon boot is quite lightweight ally.

I would guess this adds probably a full tank of fuel's worth of extra weight, and with a full tank mine usually drops about an inch.

Another guess would be that the drivers side spring would be the sagging one, you could simply swap them side to side which should help them to even out, although obviously they will then both have sagged !

Richard
 
Thanks for the quick replies.

It is difficult to say how much extra weight there is but I think your guess of an extra tank of fuel can't be far wrong. I make a tank of fuel weigh approx 40-50 kilos.

The estate hatch is actually a steel frame with an aluminuim skin on it and most of the weight seems to come from the glass which is very thick. I was quite surprised to find this when I took the window out. I'd always been under the impression that the hatch came from another production car but it appears to be fabricated, possibly from scratch, by the conversion company. (It certainly bears all the hallmarks i.e. lots of pop rivets!)

I think I'll try your suggestion of putting the longer spring on the drivers side and see how it looks. Saying that I'm tempted to give the saloon springs a go as I always felt the old saloon rode a lot better and I think P6's look quite good dragging their bottoms around!
 
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