Got Elvis into the garage today and noticed that he is listing to the left. Checked the springs and they are tired. Each side has 8 leaves but the driver's side is almost touching the center bumper and the passenger side only has about 1.5" of clearance. Back springs seem fine even after taking out about 3 leaves.

The front had a long helper spring that wrapped around one eye of the top leaf and extended all the way back - did not put that back into the pack when I reassembled as it didn't seem stock.

Are these springs candidates for re-arching or do I need to look for new springs?

-Scott

 

My '53 has the leaves that are curled over the eye at one end as well, I think they are stock. I took my springs to a local shop ( all 4 ) and they added an extra leaf and the truck sits square and even, but I don't have the body on yet.

 

Did you take the leaf packs to the shop on or off the truck? I'd be happy to pull the leaf packs myself.

-Scott

 

I am in the process of a frame -off resto and brought the springs in- it's cheaper that way.

 

I would say new or maybe a quote on rearching them.

 

I bought new leafs for all for corners of my 55; and the rears were updated to the heavy duty ones.

 

If you want to, you can re-arch the springs yourself fairly easily. Back in the 60s when the school of thought on weight transfer in drag racig was to raise up the vehicle, we rearched the springs on a lot of race cars and street posers.

 

How do you do it? Are there specs for what each leaf should be?

-Scott

 

Simple: get yourself a short section of large (8-10" high) I beam and a hand maul (short handled sledge hammer). Lay the I beam on it's side so the web is facing up, then place the leaf to be re-arched bow side up so it is straddling the top and bottom flanges of the beam with the center bolt hole over one of the flanges. Give the leaf a sharp rap with the hammer in the center. Slide the leaf about 1-1/2" towards the closer end and hit it again trying to closely approximate the force of the first blow. Continue moving and hammering until you reach the end, being careful to keep the leaf at right angles to the beam so you don't hammer in a twist. Reverse the leaf and do the other 1/2. Check your progress against the matching leaf from the other leaf stack. Be sure to flip the leaf over and recheck it to be sure it is being arched symetrically. If we were changing the arc, we would trace the leaf on the garage floor then gauge the change by comparing it to the tracing, then retracing it and fipping it over to make sure the arch was symmetrical. Start out using fairly light blows until you see how far the arc increases with each series, it doesn't require a lot of force. it's not a good idea to try to take arch back out, so go easy until you gain a feel for it. Each shorter leaf should make contact with the leaf above at the ends first with a space between them at the centerbolt. The more space the stiffer the spring will act. Sometimes you see springs where the ends of a leaf don't touch the leaf above, these are helper leaves that don't add stiffness until the spring is loaded enough to bring them into play.

 

If the droop isn't too severe you could try exchanging every other leaf in the stacks from side to side.

 

If the spring has a bad droop, isn't easier to purchase a reverse eye or regular main leaf only from one of the aftermarket places? They only run about $100. Since your removing the spring anyways, it would be easy to just replace the spring. The rearcing method sound good, but not sure if all the work involved is worth it? Only my opinion!

 

Replacing the main leaves only won't correct the problem if the rest of the leaves are sagged. It's noisy, but not difficult or time consuming shouldn't take more than an hour or so, and you can't beat the price!

 

I would think that the old springs are just fatigued and that rearching them is a temporary fix.

I just wish I could put some new bounce in my springs (my legs).

Think they're beyond repair.

 

no , they will re-arch as good as new, the sag is a long term deformation reaction to the constant weight, not the metal "weakening".
Know what you mean about the legs tho.

 

Hmm..so the hammering would re-arch them. I am going toask a dumb question. How do spring shops do it?

The steel fab shop I used to work in has a "bar rolling machine" that takes a flat steel bar and rolls it so a whatever radius (depends on how tight you set it). Could that be used to re-arch springs? Seems reasonable to me, but I don't know how spring shops do it.

I could control the arch better than with a hammer if this would work.