My very unusual front spring restoration story..

[Larry Jenkins]

When I got "Pea Cup," my 1930 CCPU basket case, the front spring looked pretty "flat."

Took it apart, and found that the center bolt was broke because the spring leaves all fell on the floor when I removed the two "U" shaped bolts.

Measured the bottom leaf distance between the pin holes and it was about 1/2" longer than specs. Ordered a new one per your recommendations in an earlier post. Will be here Monday.

Wire brushed each spring; ground a radius on each leaf on the bottom of the ends and reassembled with a new bolt using a "C" clamp and a nut wrench that pulled the leaves together very nicely.

Here's the strange part. The assembled spring is now within original factory specs both height and distance between the bottom leaf holes.

I think that the broken bolt caused the spring to look "flat" and measuring only the bottom leaf is not an indicator of condition.

Your thoughts? Any one want a nice original front spring that has been restored?

Larry Jenkins

[SeaSlugs]

All 3 spring bolts were severely worn on my AA, front one was broken, rear 2 were worn about 2/3 of the way thru.

What i think happens is this:

When thier new that center bolt is tight as a drum and the U bolts are tight as can be.

The nature of leaf springs is to flex and slide on one another as the car bounces along.

Over time the bouncing and whatnot squishes out the lube and starts wearing ever so slightly on each leaf top and bottom

the worn away material has effectively just shortened the leaf pack allowing the center bolt and U bolts to be loose.

If they arent checked eventually they get really loose and start hammering the center tie bolt and eventually breaking it as its a soft steel compared to leaf springs.

At the same time the spring clamps cant do thier job anymore and get loose allowing the leafs to slide about.

end

is there any type of service chart that says to maybe remove the U bolt cotter pins and try to tighten the U bolts that hold them to the car? if those U bolts are kept tight the spring cant wander around.

[Larry Jenkins]

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My original post, above, may not have clearly stated what I found with my front spring. I learned two things:

When a center bolt has broken, and the spring is still in the car, it will have a "flat" look, indicating it has lost it's shape due to fatigue.

Then when I tried to measure the distance of the "eye" spacing on the main leaf only, it read "long" because it was relaxed and not pulled up into shape by the center bolt.

When I cleaned up each spring leaf and re-assembled the spring, the original shape came back, as did the measurements within factory specifications.

Hope this helps someone..

Larry Jenkins