Talk:Corvette leaf spring/Archives/2015/September

Scope and rewrite?

I'm beginning to support Luke's position on this.

Corvette leaf spring

The transverse leaf spring is a type of independent suspension which utilizes a fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) mono-leaf spring instead of more conventional coil springs.

This still needs fixing, or we'd be better deleting this article altogether (and at least someone would be happy).

• Is this solely about Corvettes? (It shouldn't be, but the name needs fixing)
• Transverse leaf springs are still predominantly of steel.
• If the leaf spring acts to control roll too, then that's a sub-form of "transverse leaf spring" as a general topic. We can scope the article to be any one of these three: Corvettes, composite transverse springs with roll control, transverse leaf springs of any form. But we do need to be consistent between title, scope and lead.
• Given the age of the Corvette, I rather doubt if its earlier incarnations were even using this more advanced (polymer composite, roll controlling) spring design.
• It is still unclear (perhaps the most novel and interesting point across the whole scope) as to whether composite springs and roll control are implicitly coupled. Are there steel springs controlling roll? Are there composite springs that do not?

Andy Dingley (talk) 19:09, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I think the article is useful and clear as it now reads. I corrected some minor typographical errors. I am adding a link to the early use of transverse leaf springs in old Fords. David R. Ingham (talk) 19:31, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

So, as discussed when this article was up for deletion, that would probably make it worse. The early Fords were non-independent suspension, with a transverse leaf spring based on steam wagon practice. Where's the discussion of other transverse leaf springs, such as pre-war IFS, or the post-war Triumph Herald / Vitesse 2 rear platforms? Where are the '90s European high performance RWD IRS systems? The one that's linked here links to the Volvo 940, which has neither IRS nor leaf springs.

This article is still focussed solely on Corvettes and that's just not a notable topic, it's too narrow. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:36, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

(a more general reply is below, to a few specifics in this comment) The Volvo should be the 960, not 940. The 960 did use a Corvette like rear suspension. The new Volvo SUV (when not equipped with air ride) also uses such a system. GM used the design on millions of FWD cars made in the 80s. It's just that most people didn't notice or care. The use in the Corvette is noticed because, well it's the Corvette and like it or hate it people notice these things. Also, most longitudinal leaf spring are multi-leaf steel springs. I think most current transverse setups are actually Corvette like FRP setups. It's kind of hard to say since it's really a rare design on modern cars. The closest I can think of to a steal, transverses setup is a golf cart.Springee (talk) 18:03, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Andy, I think your concern is very valid. Between the discussions on this page and the Automobile page linked in the RfC you can see that I've struggled with the page name as well. The Corvette is far and away the most notable user of this suspension and certainly the car that has caused this design to get some mention. However, it's not the only car that uses it (this article mentions several). When I took to rewrite the article I want to make it more general but I also wanted to scope it. How do we scope a topic about a subset of automotive suspension designs? Typically we don't describe a suspension system by it's spring type unless we are talking about the common Hotchkiss-leaf spring rear end. When you look at the potential titles I've suggested you see that most got (rightly) shot down because they are too long or confusing. I'm not really OK with "transverse leaf spring" because it then would greatly increase the scope of the article. "Corvette leaf spring" is also bad because it implies a narrow scope even though the Corvette isn't the only user of even my long definition "Independent suspension utilizing a transverse FRP mono-leaf spring". Hence "Corvette leaf spring" has stuck because it works as a common description. Note that at least one article describing the new Volvo SUV noted the "Corvette" in the rear suspension. My own opinion is that the current scope is right but the name is wrong. Springee (talk) 17:58, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

How would people feel about "Transverse FRP leaf spring (Corvette leaf spring)" as a title? Something that indicates that this is the suspension type associated with the Corvette but isn't exclusively used by the Corvette? Andy is right that we shouldn't leave the discontinuity between title and subject. Alternatively would it be OK to focus on the Corvette but note the Volvo and others as examples? The lead would start with the Corvette but then quickly open the topic up to talk about the suspension in a more general way. Thoughts? Springee (talk) 23:27, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

• I've changed the lead sentence to start off talking about the Corvette leaf spring. The end of the lead expands the topic to other cars that use the same setup. I'm not sure this is better than the old lead but it does at least make the lead and the title line up. I would really like suggestions for a better way to do this! Springee (talk) 17:02, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I still can't see Corvette-only as a notable topic. This needs to expand the scope to both steel and composite springs, non-Corvettes, and to make the distinction clearer. I just don't believe that even "the Corvette system" was consistently like this right through the long history of the Corvette. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:30, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Do you have suggestions for my previous comments on this mater (made in a previous section above, not asked directly of you)? Basically I think the scope of the information in this article is good and my reading of the comments of others is they feel the same. I don't think it is good to expand it to include historical transverse leaf spring designs and that would include the C2 and C3 Corvette designs. I think it would be good to setup (and I would be willing to do this) a second article on older transverse leaf spring designs to keep the two articles cleaner. The one would link to the other. My suggestion would be rename this one something like "modern transverse leaf spring suspension" and name the other ... well I'm not sure because I don't like "historic transverse leaf spring suspension". Alternatively, we could add the historic designs to the leaf spring page (which I would like to rename "leaf spring suspension" since it is more about the suspension type than the spring itself"). My only strong request is that we make sure what ever redirects allow people to find what has been the "corvette leaf spring" page. I've been on enough auto forums where people cite the article when the inevitable "why does the Corvette use..." question comes up. If we do decide that a single transverse leaf spring page is best then I would ask that the modern design be at top (a reverse chronological order) and the merge/redirect this content to that page. along with something that makes it clear to someone searching for the Corvette info that they have found it. Anyway, I would really appreciate suggestions for how we might change it. I'm not satisfied the current version (or the one from a week back) is right, I just can't figure out the best way forward. Springee (talk) 13:38, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Reading this article gives two impressions: the use of a composite spring was a particularly Corvette feature. The Corvette always and only used a transverse composite leaf spring. Both of these are quite wrong. If the article can't do better than that, it would be better deleted.

Where is the first generation live axle Corvette? Where is the second generation multiple leaf steel spring Corvette? Did the composite spring come in with the '83 C4, or the '97 C5 (which would put it after some European cars). Andy Dingley (talk) 13:57, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

The use of the composite spring is a notable feature of several generations of the Corvette. I believe the article currently specifies which generations. I do agree that by saying "Corvette leaf spring" it implies we would talk about all generations of the car since all generations did use leaf springs. When I rewrote the article I tried to make it general vs Corvette specific. Do you think the general or Corvette specific is a better direction?

The later C3s (starting in IIRC 1981) were the first cars to offer a FRP spring. However, they were centrally mounted and thus didn't have the enhanced anti-roll characteristics the article talks about. There is no 1983 Corvette (it skipped from 1982 to 1984). The '84 Corvette's rear spring was actually a centrally mounted setup similar to the C3's FRP spring setup. However, the front suspension used the dual pivot setup. Thus the 1984 Corvette was the first to use the dual pivot setup + FRP spring. Shortly after that GM released the W-body and another FWD car that used a similar setup, paired with struts in the rear suspension. The C5 was the first time such a setup was used on both ends of a car. I don't recall if the Volvo 960 was released before or after the C5.

If the article is to be Corvette specific then I think adding the above information back in would be reasonable. It was in the earlier article. I would rather keep it more general. I liked that the old article wasn't just about the Corvette. We could make the article about independent suspension using leaf springs (or transverse leaf springs). Starting with a modern section we can talk about the FRP setups (Corvette and others) and then we can have another section (correct label?) talking about older designs. This keeps the bulk of this article together but broadens the scope. I would put a pointer for transverse leaf spring + rigid axle to look at the rigid axle suspension article. Sadly, I think part of our problem is the entire suspension discussion has never really been attacked in detail so the whole structure is very disjointed. Please see my comments on that subject here [[1]] (which you did reply to when I made the suggestion). That I think is one of the other issues, we don't quite have enough group eyes on these topics when changes are made/proposed. Anyway, please propose a few structures you think would work. That will give me a springboard to work from. Springee (talk) 15:29, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

If you want to do a general article about transverse leaf springs that goes all the way back to wooden wagons and buggies, perhaps farther. Ward20 (talk) 21:34, 1 September 2015 (UTC).

This article fails to cover transverse leaf springs, because it frames everything in the Corvette context. This article fails to cover Corvette leaf springs, because it doesn't give the historical sequence of them and it doesn't explain the front / rear use.

I would prefer to see an article here on transverse leaf springs, from the beginnings of their use (solid axles and perch brackets). It is simpler to cover those simple cases than it is to put forward an explanation for an arbitrary start date.

If you prefer to limit it to Corvette leaf spring, then that's a harder case to make for notability (although possible), but it would also have to explain the chronology of the Corvette, and the front / rear differences too.

At present, it's doing neither of these. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:23, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

What about scoping it to independent suspensions which use transverse leaf springs? I think any rigid axle setup with a transverse leaf spring should be covered by an article that talks about rigid axle suspensions. As I said before I think it's wrong to classify a suspension type first by it's spring type. I think the kinematics come first, then the spring type. I would propose putting rigid axle+transverse leaf spring in with rigid axle suspension. I would actually suggest we redirect "leaf spring" suspension pages into either rigid or independent suspension articles. From there we can cross link the various leaf spring types. This article could be a sub article of independent suspension. Thoughts? Springee (talk) 14:14, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

"Independent suspension with transverse leaf springs" works for me, but you have to have an answer for the question "Why no solid axles?, they're transverse springs too".

I would agree that kinematics is the key, not spring type. So the 911 is seen as having MacPherson struts, rather than torsion bars. However it's also the case that most leaf spring suspensions have used the leaves for some location function more than just a spring, and so their kinematics are defined by them too. Transverse leaf springs are sufficiently distinctive (one might say this about all cantilevered quarter elliptics) that they belong a very distinct distance away from anything with longitudinal semi-elliptic cart springs. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:47, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

My answer for why no solid axles would be that this would become a spur article of independent suspension. When I say kinematics I agree that in some cases the leaf is acting as an arm as well as spring. However, at the higher level we have the rigid connection between the wheels vs kinematically independent "connections". As some people point out on various web forums, the anti-roll bar does connect the two sides but not kinematically. Perhaps in the rigid axle article we should have several types, beam supported by links, beam supported by longitudinal springs, beam supported by transverse springs. Even here we get somewhat gray because of cars like the old Jag Mk2. It used a top link and lower leaf (the quarter leaf setup in the leaf spring article shows the type).

Previously I asked about redoing the various suspension articles. Would you be willing to put this one aside for a bit and help with a high level restructuring of all of these various suspension articles? I think it makes the most sense to start from the top since classification is clearly the issue we are dealing with. Should I restart the discussion on the WP:Automotive page? Springee (talk) 15:04, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Should this page remain or be merged away?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is consensus to keep the article, there is also consensus to rename it something that includes "transverse leaf spring" though there is no consensus on the specific wording though the comments all mention transverse leaf spring one has a - and others mention suspension. AlbinoFerret 01:10, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

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Based on the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles#Performance Corvette articles, should Corvette leaf spring remain as an article, be merged or be deleted? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:24, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Keep as a separate article

• keep It's a big article, it's an obscure topic. The right decision is unlikely to be a simple "Do this", "do that" with only one single outcome. Making that decision is hard too. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
• keep... but I've never really thought that a stand alone "Corvette leaf spring" article made sense. The content of this article was originally part of the main Corvette page as it applies to several generations of the car. However, the main page is high level and redirects to the generational pages for further detail about each car. As this applies to several generations the material would have to be copied in several places. This could result in messy editing. The alternative which was discussed was integration into one of the various suspension articles. In that case we still have an issue of hierarchy and classification. Further discussion in comments. Springee (talk) 13:36, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
• Keep: I support restoration of the Corvette leaf spring article despite the very valid concerns raised by Lukeno94. It is my understanding that the orthodox procedure is for problematic articles to be tagged as appropriate, not for the content to be deleted on call. Most articles need serious work, and it is a disservice to remove such pages because they are not yet up to standard. Ideally, I would like this article to benefit from a conversion to a dedicated page on transverse leaf springs as the Corvette is only one (albeit the most notable) vehicle that uses this suspension layout. This would require some information to be shifted over to Chevrolet Corvette and its subsidiary articles, and for some explanations to take a broader view. OSX (talk • contributions) 23:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
• Keep but rename and use as the basis of a more generic article (e.g., per OSX above). QuiteUnusual (talk) 08:40, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
• Keep isolated and its own article. Damotclese (talk) 15:08, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
• Keep This article is very clear as it is. I would maybe change the name to Transverse leaf-spring suspension as it may be used in the other type of cars. Gpeja (talk) 21:15, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Merge contents to Chevrolet Corvette

List it for AFD and delete it

• This one, obviously, although I won't be around at Wikipedia long enough to take part in any AfD. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 09:51, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Drop it now. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:10, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Trust the typical liar to misrepresent me and my position, and, in the process of course, disregard that no-one had previously supported its existence bar the page creator. Typical. A new article, written from scratch and actually sourced on the transverse leaf spring has a place here - something I've said a few times, but of course, Andy is too busy lying to ever acknowledge something like that. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 11:40, 28 July 2015 (UTC) This article was 20k of detail on the implications of using a transverse leaf spring. Your merged replacement was the bland statement "it had a leaf spring". There is quite some distance between these two positions. Why do you think the explanation of what a leaf spring implies for the resultant handling doesn't belong? Andy Dingley (talk) 11:46, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

Transverse leaf springs are old, and in the 1960s-1970s they were seen as thoroughly obsolete. Yet the 'Vette had one. They've seen something of a resurgence in the 1990s, for independent rear suspension. Strictly speaking, the longitudinal leaf spring (with the spring also used as a radius rod) was obsolete, there's little technical reason to extend this to a transverse spring where the wheel location is handled, of necessity, by other links.

So a "performance car" is using an at the time obscure form of suspension. Why?

The topic is clearly letter-of-WP:N-notable. As with anything about US cars, from oil pans upwards, there is a substantial literature.

The scope of this article is very broad. I think much of the trouble here comes from a perceived disjoint between the expected size of coverage for the topic and the actual article. That has come about because the article discusses a very broad analysis of suspension behaviour, most of which is specific to the use of the transverse leaf spring, but which isn't specific to the 'Vettte (note that this is not the same as "irrelevant to" the 'Vette).

Luke, as the instigator of this deletion effort, hates technical content like this. If he doesn't understand it, he thinks it ought to go (See §Gear ratios). Some other editors think an encyclopedia should be about learning new knowledge instead. When "merging" the content to the other Corvette articles, Luke's action was to paste in a single sentence for each, stating little more than "this model had a transverse leaf spring for its suspension". That's stamp collecting, not an encyclopedic explanation. An encyclopedia should explain why something is how it is and what the implications of that are, not merely state the trivial fact of its existence.

This is highlighted by the Chevrolet Corvette article itself. One might expect that if a series-wide article on a narrow technical detail is to be merged, then it would mostly end up in the series-level article. No such edit was even attempted. I'm a Brit, I know nothing of Corvettes, but I did know they had this seemingly anachronistic leaf spring. It has long been regarded (along with the fibreglass body) as one of the main distinguishing factors for the Corvette and why it was different from a Charger, Trans-am or Mustang. Across a long model history and many widely differing models, the 'Vettte kept this leaf spring. Why? There is clearly some linking thread to all this and that is precisely within our encyclopedic scope.

I think this is a reasonable article and has potential to be a good explanation of some significant issues in suspension design. Its biggest problem is simply the phrasing as "Corvette" when it's actually about the broader transverse leaf spring suspension. As such we should keep it, although renaming (and broadening away from the Corvette) is something I'd support. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

The problem with classification When we create suspension sub-articles how should we classify them? Typically I think of them as "independent" or "rigid axle" first then move to how that item is located independent->swing axle, rigid ->hotchkiss, rigid-> multi-link etc. "Leaf spring suspension" as a generic term is typically referring to a Hotchkiss setup. But there are many designs which use leaf springs which are not Hotchkiss including the ones on the transverse leaf spring page. If I were to classify what the Corvette uses I would call it Independent->Multilink or double A-arm (depending on generation) ->transverse leaf spring -> multi-pivot. I would call a BMW 39 front suspension Independent -> McPherson strut -> coil spring (with coil typically implied). Conversely the first gen Smart car's front suspension would be Independent -> McPherson -> leaf spring (-> multi-pivot could also apply). We wouldn't call the BMW front suspension "coil spring suspension". The only reason to call the Corvette "leaf spring" is because the leaf has become a notable feature. I would really prefer it if we could come up with a generic classification for this type of suspension "Independent -> control arm -> leaf -> multipivot.

To me the three notable parts of the corvette suspension are the use of fiberglass rather than steel spring, that the way the spring is used allows it to double as an anti-roll bar (GM has stated that the base C7 has no rear anti-roll bar for this exact reason), that the leaf spring does not control geometry, ie it's just a spring, not a link. So how do we create a generic page title generic to the few other cars that also use this setup yet recognizable to common readers. "Corvette leaf spring" is a technically bad name but people recognize it. If we can come up with a good place for this article in a different suspension article that would be fine with me because we could then give equal weight to the other vehicles that have used this setup. The stumbling block has always been what is the best way to do this. Springee (talk) 13:51, 28 July 2015 (UTC

Please note there was a previous discussion in 2007 as to what to do with this article [[2]]. Four editors were involved. One said merge, the other three said stand alone. Springee (talk) 14:32, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

It would be helpful to the closer and other people if you could provide more than just "there was a discussion before." The article here looked like this in March 2006 when the discussion started and this in October 2007 when the fourth person commented. It's clearly different than today's article so has it improved, is it clearer, were there concerns that were resolved, etc. Again, I have zero opinion and have not even read this article but I'm just trying to control this discussion. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:25, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.