Triple watts link?

[Norm Peterson]

I am just trying to get my brain wrapped around this whole concept, so please bear with me. It sounds like with the z-link there are extreme pinion angle changes throughout the suspension travel. By using the birdcages the axle is allowed to freely rotate inside the housing and thus the pinion angle can remain constant thru the suspension range of motion. I also see a third link in the center of the rear housing that uses a spring loaded link. I assume that is there to control pinion angle movement, but why is it spring loaded?



Andrew

As soon as you install birdcages on your Z-bars so that the axle will quit being a huge rear sta-bar, you lose control of pinion angle change/axle rotation as seen in side view and you'll need to add another link (or links*) to put that control back.

Spring loading it softens the 'hit' from suddenly applying lots of torque from a large responsive engine with little or nothing in the way of a flywheel to bleed off any torque.


* you might even find an "upper link mechanism" that splits the duties of resisting acceleration and braking torques to separate components, and in this case spring loading can ease the transition from accel to decel and vice versa. The decoupled torque arm that is/was available for F-bodies did something more or less along these lines.


On edit, I seem to recall that one of the Chrysler Corp Trans-Am teams back in the day experimented with some sort of Z-bar arrangement but eventually reverted back to the leaves.


Norm