..."all the weight of each side is supported by that single leaf"...
Surely all the weight of each side is also taken by the front springs and by
the sway-bar at the front. Unless the chassis is actually twisting, the
front of the car must lean exactly as much as the rear of the car - and the
front suspension set-up is much stiffer against leaning than the single
lower leaf of the rear swing-spring. Therefore, for the car to develop a
permanent lean, the front must have collapsed as much as the lower leaf of
the rear spring.
As an experiment, I once disconnected one end of the sway-bar on Daffy while
she sat on level ground. The sway-bar neither sprung up or down when
released from the A-arm - indicating that the sway-bar was neither making
any attempt to correct the lean (as an unyielded bar should do), nor was it
forcing the lean to be worse while fighting against the other springs.
BTW, with respect to Andy Mace's observations - Daffy was a 1978 UK 1500,
and she definitely leaned! And I've seen it in other UK cars too...
Richard Gosling
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