55 Wagon gas tank mounts
 

My '55 Courier has heavy duty rear leaf springs in the back (made by St Louis Spring Co somewhere around 1999). They are thicker than the original springs and their arch is atomic. When driving down an un-even road, the wagon frame actually twists rather than the leaf springs being bothered to move.
As such, this twisting motion has caused one of either of the front gas tank mounting hangars to actually bust apart. And that ain't no easy task as the thickness of that metal is about 1/16 inch.
I can see only two undesirable ways to stop this from happening:
1) Replace the new heavy duty springs with a set of original car springs, (maybe try to find a new set, but only if they are made to exact manufacturers specs).
2) Drop the gas tank down about an inch so that it is no longer up against the floor of the car. To do this, I would need to make pipe spacers and use longer bolts on all the mounts, modify the fuel line entrance to the tank and get a longer rubber hose for the filler neck.
This is the third time I have needed to weld and re-install one of the gas tank mounting hangars. Has anybody else had this problem?

Re: 55 Wagon gas tank mounts
 

Unless you are going to use it for heavy duty work I would go with a standard wagon/ranchero rear spring from Detroit Eaton.

Re: 55 Wagon gas tank mounts
 

I bought new springs for my '54 Ranch wagon from Eaton Springs. Haven't installed them yet but They are supposed to be exact replacements. Everything I've heard about Eaton has been good if that helps.

Re: 55 Wagon gas tank mounts
 

You ain't running shine out there are you ... :confused:

Re: 55 Wagon gas tank mounts
 

Wagons and Couriers used 7 leaf springs. Police option on cars were 6 leaf, and standard cars were 5 leaf. Maybe try some from Eaton in either 6 or 5 leaf, unless you need the extra capacity.


Sal

Re: 55 Wagon gas tank mounts
 

Nope, but even if I had the whole back of this thing filled with barrels full of shine, that would only be enough weight to deflect the springs down about a half inch.
I hauled a wagon-load of firewood 60 miles on the highway in this thing and it barely phased the back end height. It drove like a bear and felt like the front end was barely touching the road.

Re: 55 Wagon gas tank mounts
 

Can you take a fairly close up photo of the ends of a couple of the sub-leafs (under the main leaf) so I can see if they included the dimples for the wax insert and judge the thickness close to the ends???