Automobile History

SUSPENSION
On a summer day in 1904 a young
man by the name of William Brush
helped bring about the modern
automobile suspension system.
Driving his brother Alanson's
Crestmobile, Brush was rolling along
too fast for the unpaved roads of the
day and went into a curve at 30
mph. The car's right front wheel
skittered onto the dirt shoulder and
whammed into a deep rut. Almost at
once, the wheel started to shimmy
violently. The undulations of the
jarred right front elliptic leaf spring
had sent shock waves across the
solid I-beam axle to the left side of
the vehicle. This set the entire front
of the car to vibrating furiously.
Brush was caught unawares and lost
control. The car crashed through a
barbed-wire fence, hit a ditch and
overturned in a cow pasture.
Several hours later young William
'fessed up to Alanson, whose
demeanor switched from stern to
thoughtful, since he was trying to
design a better car. That car, dubbed
the Brush Two-Seat Runabout,
finally appeared in 1906. It featured
a revolutionary suspension system
that incorporated two innovations
never before assembled together:
front coil springs and devices at each
wheel that dampened spring bounce
-- shock absorbers -- mounted on a
flexible hickory axle.
Some European car makers had tried
coil springs, with Gottlieb Daimler in
Germany being the leading
exponent. However, most
manufacturers stood fast with leaf
springs. They were less costly, and
by simply adding leaves or changing
the shape from full elliptic to three-
quarter or half elliptic, the spring
could be made to support varying
weights.
Leaf springs in one form or another
have been used since the Romans
suspended a two-wheeled vehicle
called a Pilentum on elastic wooden
poles. The first steel spring put on a
vehicle was a single flat plate
installed on carriages by the French
in the 18th century.
The venerable leaf spring, which
some manufacturers still use in rear
suspensions today, was invented by
Obadiah Elliot of London in 1804. He
simply piled one steel plate on top
of another, pinned them together
and shackled each end to a carriage.
The coil spring is not a spring
chicken, either. The first patent for
such a spring (British patent No.
792) was issued to R. Tredwell in
1763. The main advantage of coil
springs was that they did not have
to be spread apart and lubricated
periodically to keep them from
squeaking, as leaf springs did.
Model T Ford leaf spring
Henry Ford's 1908 Model T Ford
featured old-fashioned leaf springs
with a novel twist -- he used only
one spring at each axle, mounted
transversely, instead of one at each
wheel. Ford's adaptation of high-
strength vanadium steel from a
French racing car allowed him to
save weight and cut costs in many
areas of the Model T without
compromising its durability.
With the exception of a car here and
there, independent coil spring front
suspension remained in limbo for 25
years after the introduction of the
Brush Runabout. Then suddenly in
1934, General Motors, Chrysler,
Hudson, and others reintroduced
coil spring front suspension, this
time with each wheel sprung
independently. In that year, most
cars started using hydraulic shock
absorbers and balloon (low-
pressure) tires. Coupling a solid front
axle with shock absorbers and these
tires really aggravated front end
shimmy. Suspending each wheel
individually lessened the effects of
spring bounce.
Not all cars used coil springs at first.
Some had independently suspended
leaf springs. But soon after World
War II, all manufacturers switched to
coil springs for the front wheels.
Buick became the first U.S.
manufacturer to use back-end coil
springs in 1938. Manufacturers have
switched back and forth from model
to model between leaf and coil
springs since then. Generally, large,
heavy cars are equipped with leaf
springs, while small light cars have
coil springs.
Independent rear suspension
became popular on the rough,
twisty roads of Europe because it
can offer improved ride and
handling. The cheapest method is
the swing axle, for which early VWs
were infamous. The differential is
bolted to the frame, with constant-
velocity joints on each side.
However, as the wheels bounce over
bumps, the tire camber and rear
track change radically, causing some
handling quirks. In extreme
maneuvers, an outside wheel can
actually tuck under the car, causing
it to flip.
Axles with joints at both ends do a
better job of keeping the wheels
upright in a turn, and an amazing
variety of control arms have been
used to meet this end. Trailing arms,
once popular, sometimes allowed
trailing throttle oversteer -- lift your
foot off the gas pedal in a turn and
the rear wheels shift slightly,
throwing the car into a skid. Modern
designs use up to six control links at
each wheel to prevent such erratic
behavior as bump steer and trailing
throttle oversteer.
Air suspension, which Lincoln
ballyhooed for some models in 1984
was introduced in 1909 by the
Cowey Motor Works of Great
Britain. It did not work well because
it leaked.
Stout-Scarab
The first practical air suspension was
developed by Firestone in 1933 for
an experimental car called the Stout-
Scarab. This was a rear-engined
vehicle that used four rubberized
bellows in place of conventional
springs. Air was supplied by small
compressors attached to each
bellow. As you might imagine, the
air bag suspension was an expensive
setup -- still is, in fact.
The first automobile to use torsion
bar suspension was the 1921
Leyland. Most of the credit for the
wide acceptance of torsion bars in
Europe goes to Dr. Ferdinand
Porsche who made it standard on
most of his cars, beginning with the
1933 Volkswagen prototypes. By
1954, 21 makes of European cars
were equipped with torsion bars.
By contrast, in America, only
Chrysler went the torsion bar route
on its large-sized cars. Despite its
excellent ride qualities, high cost has
limited its acceptance in this
country.
A renowned British surgeon, who
had been knighted by Queen
Victoria, was convinced of a direct
relationship between sound health
and driving a car. Dr. William
Thomson's observations were made
in a 1901 edition of the Journal of
Medicine where he stated:
I have found my drives to improve
my general health. The jolting which
occurs when a motor car is driven at
fair speed conduces to healthy
agitation that acts on the liver. This
aids the peristaltic movements of
the bowels and promotes the
performance of their functions.
Manufacturers of cars either did not
read Sir Thomas's report or did not
care for his views, because soon
afterward they began using shock
absorbers to suppress vehicular
jolting.
Since early motor cars were limited
to much the same speed as
carriages, leaf springs for them
could be made of the right
proportion to provide relatively jolt-
free rides. As roads were improved
and speeds shot up, a 1909 edition
of Automobile Engineering noted:
When springs are made sufficiently
stiff to carry the load properly over
the small inequalities of ordinary
roads, they are too stiff to respond
readily to the larger bumps. The
result is a shock, or jounce, to the
passengers. When the springs are
made lighter and more flexible in
order to minimize the larger shocks,
the smaller ones have too large an
influence, thus keeping the [car]
body and its passengers in motion
all the time. These two contradictory
conditions have created the field for
the shock absorber. The first shock
The first recorded use of a crude
shock absorber is the invention by
one A. Gimmig in 1897. He attached
rubber blocks to the top of each leaf
spring. When the suspension was
compressed sufficiently, the rubber
bumpers hit bolts that were
attached to the frame. Rubber bump
stops are still used in many modern
suspensions, but their effect on ride
control is minimal.
The first true shock absorbers were
fitted to a racing bicycle in 1898 by a
Frenchman named J. M. M.
Truffault. The front fork was
suspended on springs, and
incorporated a friction device that
kept the bike from oscillating
constantly. In 1899, an American
automobile enthusiast named
Edward V. Hartford saw one of
Truffault's bikes win a marathon race
at Versailles. Hartford immediately
recognized the automotive potential
of the friction device.
Hartford and Truffault got together
and by the next year Hartford had
outfitted an Oldsmobile with a
variation of Truffault's device. This
first automobile shock absorber
consisted of a pair of levers that
were hinged together with a pad of
rubber placed at the pivot point.
One of the lever arms was attached
to the frame, while the other was
bolted to the leaf spring.
A bolt placed at the hinge point
could be tightened or loosened to
increase or decrease the friction,
providing a stiffer or softer ride. The
Truffault-Hartford unit was,
therefore, not only the first
automotive shock absorber, but also
the first adjustable shock.
Hartford brought the car to America,
where he opened his own plant, the
Hartford Suspension Co., in Jersey
City, New Jersey. His first big
contract came from Alanson P.
Brush, who installed shock
absorbers along with front coil
springs on the 1906 Brush
Runabout. The ride given by the car
was called "magnificent" in a
critique written by Hugh Dolnar for
Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal.
From then on shock absorber
designs came fast and furious.
Gabriel Snubbers
This consisted of a housing that
contained a belt wound into a coil. It
was kept under tension by a spring.
The housing was fastened to the
frame and the outer end of the belt
was attached to the axle to limit the
degree of rebound from a jolt.
The Gabriel Co. started operation in
1906 making accessory auto horns.
The founder, Claude H. Foster,
named his firm after the horn-
tooting angel Gabriel. When the
pushbutton horn came along in
1914, it killed the Gabriel and all
other body-mounted horns. Foster
looked for a product to keep his
company in business and came
across the Snubber.
Equalizing springs
These were auxiliary coil springs
used in addition to the leaf spring.
Since each spring had a different
harmonic frequency, they tended to
cancel out one another's
oscillations. But they also added to
ride harshness and soon fell out of
favor.
Air springs
Air springs combine spring and
shock absorbing action in one unit
and were often used without metal
springs. The first one was developed
by Cowey Motor Works of Great
Britain in 1909. It was a cylinder that
could be filled with air from a bicycle
pump through a valve in the upper
part of the housing. The lower half
of the cylinder contained a
diaphragm made of rubber and cord
which, because it was surrounded
by air, acted like a pneumatic tire. Its
main problem was that it often lost
air.
The newest air spring, developed by
Goodyear, is found on some late-
model Lincolns. Like the ones that
have preceded them, these ride-on-
air units are more costly than
conventional springs and hydraulic
shock absorbers.
Hydraulic shock absorbers
M. Houdaille of France gets credit
for designing the first workable
hydraulic shock absorber in 1908.
Hydraulic shocks damp spring
oscillations by forcing fluid through
small passages. In the popular
tubular shock, a piston with small
orifices is attached to the chassis
and a cylindrical oil reservoir is
attached to the suspension or axle.
As the suspension moves up and
down, the piston is forced through
the oil, resisting the action of the
spring.
One-way valves allow different
orifices to be used to control
suspension jounce and rebound.
This is called a double-acting shock.
The latest wrinkle is to add a
chamber of compressible gas at one
end of the fluid reservoir to cushion
the damping action.
Monroe built the first original
equipment hydraulic shocks for
Hudson in 1933. By the late 1930s
the double-acting tubular shock
absorber became common on cars
made in the United States. In
Europe, lever-type hydraulic shocks
prevailed into the '60s. They
resembled the Hartford friction
shock, but used hydraulic fluid
instead of a friction pad.
MacPherson struts
With the advent of front-wheel-
drive cars, manufacturers in the
1970s and '80s started using
MacPherson struts. MacPherson, a
GM engineer, developed this unit in
the 1960s. It combines the coil
spring, hydraulic shock absorber,
and upper suspension arm into a
single compact device. The main
advantage is that it allows the
necessary space for positioning the
front-drive transaxle.
Several Japanese cars now feature
struts with shock valving that can be
adjusted from soft to firm by electric
motors while the car is moving. The
driver has a choice of three settings,
but a signal from the speedometer
usually overrides the manual control
at highway speeds to set the shocks
on firm.
The Nissan Maxima for 1985 sold in
Japan had electronically controlled
shocks that automatically provided a
soft, medium, or firm ride
depending upon road conditions,
speed, and driving style. A sonar
unit under the bumper monitored
the road surface, while other
sensors checked speed, acceleration,
steering angle, and brake use.
Data were fed to a central
processing unit that decided if you
were driving gently or aggressively,
then activated shafts in the shock
absorbers that altered the size of
fluid passages.
The Lotus Active Suspension System
does away with springs and shock
absorbers altogether. Eighteen
motion sensing transducers send
data to four computer-controlled
hydraulic rams. The system
distinguishes roll, dive, jounce, and
bump. Valves in the rams adjust the
ride accordingly. These valves can
change position as much as 250
times per second.
The Lotus system has the uncanny
ability to keep a car level in a tight
turn or even bank it toward the
inside of the turn, rather than
leaning to the outside as other cars
do.