i will be pulling the leaf springs and rear and swapping it into my other truck. i havent yet cleared the grime to see whats holding them on.
is there anything i should know? any special tools needed? thanks!

 

A wrench, hammer and punch should do it. You may need a big hammer depending on how long they have been there.

 

f.rock, if there rusty spray them down with areokroil or liquid wrench for a day........

 

Follow the shop manual for how to jack up the back until tires are still on ground but most of the weight is on jack stands. The U bolt are eazyest to just cut off, and toss in the can. It will save you a ton of and time and they only cost $6 each. I used a cutting blade on my grinder. Look for the grease fittings on the front and rear spring shackles. They are attached to shackle PINS that act like bolts that go thru the spring bushing eyes. These Pins must be driven out with a punch or drift from the opposite side of the grease fittings. Each spring has 3 pins. 2 on the rear shackle and 1 on the rear spring shackle bracket. Do a search here on this subject. Lots of ingenious ways to remove these pins. Also there are shackle pin lock BOLTS to be removed before you try to remove the PINS.
If the springs are original there is a big chance the pins, and spring bushings are shot. Pins= $6 each, bushings=$7 each. I was able to remove the bushings in the the spring eyes but I took the springs and new bushing to machine shop and they pressed the new ones in for me... $ 20. The spring eye is usually also warped and when the new bushings get pressed in, they can get distorted/out of round and your new pins wont just "slip in " until they get honed a bit,so.....take a new pin with you to the machine shop so they can make it a good fit. Read the shop manual and do FTE search.
John

 

OK thanks. the front of the rear leaf springs has some bracing in the way; how to deal with that?

 

The only 2 ways I know are;
1. Drill ahole in the brace big enough to fit your punch thru to get to the pin. Make the hole location a good estimate to pin location, you will be flying blind.
2.This is the eazyer way IMO and I did both. Clamp a set of visegrips down hard onto the grease fitting, and bang on the grips in the 'PIN OUT DIRECTION". MIne popped right out. I tried #1 on my first one and it was a lot harder. Other FTE members have threaded some round metal stock to match the threads on the grease fittings. They screwed the threaded stock into the pin, clamped 2 vice grips on it, side by side ( the crap set on the hammer side )and beat on the grips. Others have threaded slide hammers to the pin at grease fitting.
John

 

thanks! so the pins must come from the inside out? cool. i'll try the vice grip trick. what holds the pins in?

 

Lock pins/bolts hold the shackle pins in place. The SHACKLE PINS, (that have the grease fitting on them ) wont come out until you FIRST remove the LOCK PIN/BOLT. The LOCK pins/bolts have a 9/16ths nut on them.... remove the nut and tap on the thread side,....you may need to put some ummmph on the strike.....lock pins are $2 each and usually come with bolts also. When you get a lock pin and a shackle bolt out and in your hands you will notice a notch in the cylindrical (spelling not my thing ) form of the shackle pin....this notch is in the shackle pin to accomidate the lock bolt,... that when the shackle pins are installed ( in a very specific position,back inside the new spring bushing) this lock pin/bolt comes across the notch in the shackle pin and....LOCKS...YES I SAID LOCKS...the shackle pin in place. ( the coffe is kickin in ) There is a lock pin/bolt for each SHACKLE PIN....so there are 3 per spring,....2 on rear shackle and 1 on front shackle bracket. ALSO.... ..NOTE the LOCK PINS design. A very specific alignment is required to mate the lock pins with the notch in SHACKLe pins. If you put your nose right up to the hole the lock pins came out of and have the shackle pin and lock bolt handy to stare at it will dawn on you what I am saying. If can locate a sketch Roger, and FTE buddy did for me on this very subject I will post them. John

 

wow thanks alot! i'm ready to get started. i'll let you know how it worked out.

 

got it! thank you for the help.

 

There are holes in the frame that line up with the pins so you can put a drift pin in the holes and hammer out the pins. They came out fairly well for me in my 54
Max E