Lakewood `J Bolt`slapper bars
 

I am putting a sreet/strip car together, and I have a pair of old Lakewood slapper bars laying around I would like to use. These have provisions for the J bolts , anybody use these in the past, and does the J bolt setup help enough to justify the cost and effort to find the J bolts and brackets (assuming Lakewood still offers them). Or should I not worry about the J bolts at all. It looks like they would help spread the load away from just the welds at the mounting plates.The car is nothing too radical, about 3800 pounds, mild 428 FE Ford and 4 speed, hope it runs 12s with mid 3 series gearing. Mainly hoping to avoid wheelhop with the 2 inch wide leaf springs. It looks like I will need to extend the bars a couple of inches to get the snubber under the front spring eye, sounds like that was a common issue with the Lakewood bars.

Re: Lakewood `J Bolt`slapper bars
 

Rory…I would just use them the way they are with your additions and the flat plates with square u-bolts on the front. The "J" Bolts were used to adjust preload on the snubbers. They won't add any structural advantages to something that is already more than adequate for its application. Tuning the bar would mainly consist of clearances between the snubbers and the contact point on the leaf springs. With a multi leaf spring pack being more rigid than a mono leaf, you have that in your favour. You had that same bar on your 1970 Cobra-Jet car and you know how that worked. Your 59 with a similar drivetrain may work even a bit better if you can get enough tire under it. It might work as good as tree sap on a head gasket. Can't wait to see you driving it. The last time I seen you in one of those was driving without a windshield. MB

Re: Lakewood `J Bolt`slapper bars
 

Hi Rory,

If that slapper bar doesn't reach and contact the spring under the spring eye, it will bend your spring....

The old trick was to extend the length of the bar so that the snubber contacted the spring eye.....

You can adjust the preload by changing the height of the snubber.....

Jack up the car by the body and change the length...

If it is still too far away, you can add pinion angle shims between the bottom of the spring and the slapper bar spring perch.....

If you can find the "J" bolts you should run them to spread out the load of lifting your car away from the spring perch (that's a lot of leverage on those welds)....

Also put the stiffest extension shock that you can find on the rear...

They work,
Bob

Re: Lakewood `J Bolt`slapper bars
 

Rory, I've got a set of those J-bolts you can have, if you want them.
I couldn't find the lower brackets, but they're not hard to fab up on a power brake or some kind of bending device.
Just let me know.
MY

Re: Lakewood `J Bolt`slapper bars
 

Make sure you gusset the spring perch pads.

Re: Lakewood `J Bolt`slapper bars
 

^^^^^what he said...actually you only need to gusset the rear of the perch

Re: Lakewood `J Bolt`slapper bars
 

why stiff extension on the shocks. I thought the idea was to let the rear raise easy.
right or wrong.
Rod in AZ

Re: Lakewood `J Bolt`slapper bars
 

If you don't control the extension the rear will hop up and not transfer the weight forward as it should..

Also a soft shock might allow itself to top out and actually lift the rear wheels off of the track surface....

The rear suspension has be controlled...

Bob