Posted by Matt Wilson on Monday, January 26, 2004 at 5:59PM :
In Reply to: Interesting Spring Discovery posted by Marty on Monday, January 26, 2004 at 3:50PM :
The main reason I could think of is that the springs now slide against each other with much less friction, and maybe that friction is needed as part of the load-carrying ability of the spring pack.
If you think about it, the leaves now slide against each other more easily and the whole stack of leaves deflects more under a given load than it did before. So it will take a lot less load to make the springs flatten out or reverse arch than it did before you added the grease. At least, I believe that's what will happen. So the overall capacity of the spring pack is reduced.
And then as Kurt mentioned, water, dirt, etc., may get trapped in there and corrode and abrade the material.
Just my speculations. I've thought about greasing the leaves on my truck, as well, but I just haven't decided for sure whether I should, and I haven't gotten around to doing it.
Matt
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