The shock absorbers seemed ok so I rubbed them down and painted them and ordered new rubbers, bolts, washers, and split pins for them. I cleaned up and painted the spring base plates and bought new U-bolts (the square one took a couple of orders to get right, but eventually ordering by an 'original OEM' part number got me the square profile I needed for the driver's side axle case). I've already covered the chassis and spring bush extraction and replacement in previous updates.
Reassembling the leaf springs was interesting. I took them apart completely and cleaned up each leaf individually. I would not do this again unless the springs were very old indeed, perhaps almost flat, and were worth the work involved because they could not easily be replaced; say, they were off a vintage vehicle of some kind and not easily replaced, for example.
When I disassembled the leaf springs I opened out the rebound clips (the riveted 'C'-shape type, not bolted) with a bar and hammer. After I cleaned all the leaves with a grinder I then greased each leaf face before clamping them and bolting them back together with new dowel bolts.
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| When greasing leaf springs before reassembly, less is more.. |
https://www.suspensionspecialists.com/tech0004.html
A lot of people (me included before I read the page above) think rebound clips are there to stop the leaves rotating away from one another - but that's not something that can happen unless there's a serious problem with the springs or the way they've been fitted. Springs always flatten out, and individual leaves break, long before any substantial skewing takes place. Rebound clips are there to stop powerful rebounds from breaking the main leaf on the way back up when it is unable to share the load with other leaves.
Anyway, it turns out there should be a certain gap between the leaves and the enclosing rebound clip, and the gap I worked them back to is almost exactly right.
'Free camber' is the distance between the line joining a spring's bushes and the face of the main leaf, or roughly the spring's height when viewed as an arch. I measured the height of both springs before disassembling them and found them to be roughly the same. This didn't worry me until I learned (again, see link above) the driver's side should have an extra inch or so of free camber. It's this difference that allows it to compensate for the extra weight of the driver and (on average, half full) fuel tank. Well, the driver's side must have compressed faster over time since once the springs were cleaned of rust and greased and reassembled, the driver's side had regained its extra inch.
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| The driver's side regains its extra inch from a refurb.. |
I said above I wouldn't entirely disassemble a leaf spring again unless it was irreplaceable and I had no other option. I say this from experience now since I believe 80% of the benefit from the springs' refurbishment came from 20% of the work. In future, I would remove the springs from the vehicle, clamp and unbolt them, remove the top three leaves and clean those up - and then instead of opening the rebound clips at all just let the other six leaves naturally part to allow me to clean them up by hammer and wire brush. I could have sprayed grease in between them just the same, and bolted them back together right away. That's how I'll do it next time. Well, actually next time I'll be ordering new springs, for the back, because they are a lot older and almost entirely flat and not worth saving since they are easily replaced.
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| Awaiting reassembly.. |
