Leaf spring refurbishment

Spent Queens Birthday long weekend working on making the leaf springs presentable. They were in pretty bad shape, a lot of rust and pitting but they still have a reasonable curve in them so I'll take a punt on re using them. If I had the money I would buy new springs but if I was replacing everything this project wouldn't be happening.

So first I stripped the spring packs apart. The leaves were so rusted together that I had to use a hammer & chisel to separate them. Next was the challenge of removing the spring bushes. I made a puller with some M12 threaded rod, some tube and a boss I turned down to a diameter slightly less than the bush.

  
Once apart, I buzzed off as much of the rust as I could with a wire brush on the grinder.

I then applied CRC rust converter to help with the remaining surface rust.

A smear of assembly paste between the leaves

And reassembled and painted.

Another spring related job that needed doing was the spring plate/shock absorber mounts. The original pins were really worn and beyond repair, due to the shock absorber bushes collapsing. I dissected them and cut the pins from the plates. Cut some new shafts from 3/4" stock and welded them back onto the plates. Should be good for another 40 years

I'm expecting a package from www.lrdirect.com any day now, which has all the seals and gaskets etc for me to reassemble to rear axle, so expect a post about that soon.

In other news, I've put the engine on an engine stand so that I can move it around.

And the chassis is off to the sandblaster tomorrow

Stay tuned..