Auxillary Valve Springs

DangerDan

Forum User
Non-VOC Member
Recently I was looking through the parts list in the area of the cylinder heads. Illustrated is a smaller auxiliary spring. The index does not show then being used on any model. A quick search of the forum does not show any post. So the burning question of the moment is " What advantage is there in adding them to the mix".
 

davidd

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
I am pretty sure they are used on all models, but I know I use them on mine. Springs have been a problem for decades. If you think of putting a single spring on your work bench and hitting it with a hammer, it will compress, but the force does not just push back once, it pushes back several times. This is like a car with bad shocks. Springs bounce. In earlier days they used "hairpin" springs to minimize the coils working against each other. I think Ricardo found that the number of coils affected the frequency of the bounce. The next step was to use two springs with a specific number of coils, one wound left and one wound right. Essentially, they were trying to design in a shock absorber which is easy to put on suspension, but hard to put on valves.

There are primarily three ways to use a single spring. The first is to use spring wire that provides a lot of damping. The second is to tighten the coil spacing at the bottom (and sometimes the top also.) The third is to use "Behive" shaped springs. These have become quite common in racing circles.

David
 

roy the mechanic

Well Known and Active Forum User
VOC Member
Triple ( 3) springs were listed for lightnings and shadows. They were quickly deleted due to excessive cam follower wear. The greater the spring pressure the more wear on the poor old follower.
 
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