the leaf spring thread

[agjohn02]

ok, doing an SOA on my scout and getting rid of the 4" lifters. i wanna go back to a stock height spring. ive got a line on a set of stock scout springs but they, along with any other stock spring will need to be rebuilt before i put em on my rig. where can i get a good set of new springs for a scout, 2" wide because i already have my hangers. i dont wanna pay big $$$ though. would i be better off rebuilding an old set or trying to find new? i know nothing about leaf springs so any pointers on the rebuild would be appreciated too. what about mil wrapped springs? what are the benefits? i know there are few scout guys here, but leaf spring tech is pretty universal.

[AgDieseler]

Leaf spring rebuilding is pretty cheap. I did a set about a year ago. I ground off all the paint, repainted the sliding surfaces with graphite paint from TSC, installed new teflon sliders from Alcan, and went with greasable bushings. It took a while, and I could feel a difference from the old springs. Enjoy.

[Jackasic]

i have some stockers I'l let go pretty cheap. Already have prothane bushings in them too.

[agjohn02]

does anyone have pics of a military wrapped spring? ive read descriptions of what they are but still am confused as to what they look like.

how hard is it to unwrap a spring and how do you rewrap it without heating the spring? i dont want to break the temper of the spring rewrapping it?

[StevenAg03]

does anyone have pics of a military wrapped spring? ive read descriptions of what they are but still am confused as to what they look like.

how hard is it to unwrap a spring and how do you rewrap it without heating the spring? i dont want to break the temper of the spring rewrapping it?


this is a crude drawing done in etch-a-sketch pro...

[agjohn02]

i see, thanks for the input steven, i looked on alcans website and they had a pic too.

[Mack84]

does anyone have pics of a military wrapped spring? ive read descriptions of what they are but still am confused as to what they look like.

how hard is it to unwrap a spring and how do you rewrap it without heating the spring? i dont want to break the temper of the spring rewrapping it?

Fbronco86 speaking

bad idea. You can not hurt the temper of the spring with out heating it up. But you are going to cold work the spring which makes it brittle. I am not sure how springs are made. But i think they bend them up and then heat treated or they are rolled hot.

[eight]

If you use some without the wrap they can perform tricks and amaze bystanders :D

Leaf springs are heat treated to about 70 HRC and tempered back to about 42 HRC. It gives good ductility, strength, and minimizes creep. They not teach that stuff in real mechanical engineering mikey?

Why would you want to unwrap them?

[agjohn02]

Fbronco86 speaking

bad idea. You can not hurt the temper of the spring with out heating it up. But you are going to cold work the spring which makes it brittle. I am not sure how springs are made. But i think they bend them up and then heat treated or they are rolled hot.

im talking about the wraps that hold the spring together, when i disassemble and reassemble. im worried if you heat the wrap to re/disassemble it, then you'll also heat the spring and break the temper unless you re-quench it, and i dont know what quenching method to use nor do i want to bother with it. alcans springs are hot rolled then quenched.


If you use some without the wrap they can perform tricks and amaze bystanders

i bet you can impale them with flying bits of spring too

[eight]

Oh those clamps, just put the heat in the middle and do it quickly. You won't heat the spring enough to matter.

[agjohn02]

Leaf springs are heat treated to about 70 HRC and tempered back to about 42 HRC. It gives good ductility, strength, and minimizes creep. They not teach that stuff in real mechanical engineering mikey?

i had the beotch price for materials too. that still doesnt tell us the heat treat process. give me temps, times and quench method and let me borrow your furnace and ill heat treat my handmade springs, right after i mine the ore and make some spring steel in my crock pot. :flipoff2:

what about teflon sliders, do they require locational holes in the leaves? they dont just slip in between the leaves do they?

[AgDieseler]

what about teflon sliders, do they require locational holes in the leaves? they dont just slip in between the leaves do they?
My springs had holes already drill for them. When I talked to the guy at Alcan, he asked what the shape of the hole was. I remember an option being round, so you should be able to grab some 2" wide sliders with round snaps and just drill the right size hole if they aren't already there.

[usmcagg02]

instead of unwrappin why not try takin out the centering pin and sliding the inner one out from inside?

[agjohn02]

Hello John

Thank you for visiting our web site. At Alcan Spring, we custom build
our springs to fit your IH
by using information you give us about its weight distribution, lift
requirements and how you plan to use it. The cost of the springs:
$165.00 each front spring and $190.00 each rear spring. While steel
prices are soaring, we are forced to add a $5 surcharge to each spring.
They come with bushings and take about 3 weeks to design/build.

If you have any question, please feel free to email us again, or call
us
at 888/321-0870. When you are ready to order, pleased call us so that
we can discuss any particulars you have for the performance of your
springs.

Thanks again,

Charles and Tom


yup, folks, thats $710 for custom springs with no lift. good springs from what i hear, but still more than i expected.

[uglyota]

my round sliders are 2" wide made for springs with a 1/2" wide hole. They were about 75cents each from alcan.
They seem like pretty cool guys, however, I don't think I'd buy custom springs unless you've got a big-ass money tree in your back yard. Lots of better ways to blow $700.
Just get together a pile of all the correct-width leaf springs you can, pull the center pins and bend out the clamps (I'm not sure why you want to mess with torching them) so you have a pile of random leafs, and start stacking them next to each other keeping an eye out for length, arch, and thickness. Think about putting half an overload on the bottom of the rear packs if you're not planning on an anti-wrap bar.
Plan to pull it apart a few times...this is a trial-and-error process.
I'll show you a pic of what I mean if someone wants to meet me at my house sometime today with a digital camera. I'm in the middle of doing this right now
You might check out Pirate and see if any of the scout guys over there have descriptions of their SOA Kustom packs, just for an idea of alternate places to get leaves, number of leaves to use, etc. 2" wide? maybe F150s? YJs EDIT:CJ I mean? S10s?
What about picking up a set of 63" chevys? Mad flex, thick-ass leaves control wrap pretty good, lots of people have done it on lots of vehicles...

[AgDieseler]

I think of custom springs as a detail that should be done only after everything else on the rig is finished (is it ever?). It's easy to find "off the shelf" springs that will do a fine job and at half the cost of custom springs. Money can be better spent in the earlier stages of a buildup.

[Busa]

A good suspention and gearing is the most important part of a good rig. I got my spring from All Pro which come from alcan. I payed about that when I got them. If you do coil overs you are going to pay way more than that to set it up right.

[agjohn02]

had an idea. would it be useful to wrap a spring in something like a big tube of heatshrink or some sort of tape to keep dirt and such out of it? you could actually grease a spring and wrap it to keep crap from building up between the leaves. when the spring goes into droop, do the leaves separate? would this just tear the wrapping off?

just a thought, please dont flame me for this being stupid

[usmcagg02]

i would think there would be too much friction and movement at the ends. you'd have to get some big assed heat shrink to fit around a leaf spring anyways, do they make that big?

[usmcagg02]

I'll show you a pic of what I mean if someone wants to meet me at my house sometime today with a digital camera.

i got a camera and not doin jack **** till about 5:30. gimme a call if you want me to come take pics. 676-0449.

[uglyota]

had an idea. would it be useful to wrap a spring in something like a big tube of heatshrink or some sort of tape to keep dirt and such out of it? you could actually grease a spring and wrap it to keep crap from building up between the leaves. when the spring goes into droop, do the leaves separate? would this just tear the wrapping off?

just a thought, please dont flame me for this being stupid
not gonna flame, not gonna flame...
since your going to want to open up those clamps and let those puppies breathe, this is not a good idea. Your spring pack, especially a booty-fabbed one, is gonna fan out when you're drooped. Also, you will also find how well leaf springs work as rock sliders, so anything wrapped around them is gonna get shredded this way as well.
Since dieselboy didn't give you the rundown on his "ultimate spring prep," I will:
Once you get your pack built, drive it around a while, flex, bounce (no shocks, preferably) until they get settled in and you're confident you like them how they are. Then wire wheel/grind/sandblast each individual leaf clean. hit them with 2 coats of ag slider paint (graphite impregnated paint available from TSCO), give it one quick swipe with medium-fine grit sandpaper. On any leaf where the end rubs on the leaf above it, throw in a teflon slider (from Alcan, drill a hole in the spring to secure the insert if it doesn't already have one). New center pins, polyurethane bushings (we can probably get you a tutorial on taking out stock bushings, if you've never done that before), grunt and cuss until they're back in the hanger/shackle and bolted to the axle, and pimp those babies like it's 1984.

[agjohn02]

yeah, ive seen some pretty big heat shrink before, about the size of a motorcycle innertube. prolly big enough for a scout spring but not a 2.5 - 3 inch wide one. we used some of the middle sized stuff to wrap our halfshafts on the race car. i didnt think wrapping the springs was a very good idea, but was looking for some way to get some grease in the spring without making it a dirt magnet. eric, thats what i was looking for, i know squat about rebuilding springs. thanks for the info.

[uglyota]

eric, thats what i was looking for, i know squat about rebuilding springs. thanks for the info.
No prob. All's I'm doing right now is regurgitating what I've heard though. I'll get nathan to post a pic to show you how my trial and error has worked so far. ;)

[fbronco86]

If you use some without the wrap they can perform tricks and amaze bystanders :D

Leaf springs are heat treated to about 70 HRC and tempered back to about 42 HRC. It gives good ductility, strength, and minimizes creep. They not teach that stuff in real mechanical engineering mikey?

Why would you want to unwrap them?

well ryan since i would be your boss i dont need to know that kinda crap haha.

[eight]

You makin this **** too complicated. I didn't clean/prep/paint/other****. Just plain YJ springs with cj rears added to them. All the sliders have escaped. I got a back tire a foot up the rti ramp at katemcy, and I've never had a problem lifting a tire cause of lack of flex.

Now what's important is keeping those sum*****es in line and not bending. So get the military wrap or use the clamps on the hanger side at least. A great suspension is about stability and reliability, flex comes next.

[agjohn02]

im not making it too complicated. i dont do stuff half@$$ed unless i have to. this is my daily driver and i dont want squeeking springs and i want a smooth as possible ride. flex and aesthetics come next. the whole reason im doing the soa and rs is for driveability, not so much for flex. thats an added bonus. ive never done a spring rebuild and i wanna do it right the first time while i have it all apart.

[uglyota]

You makin this **** too complicated. I didn't clean/prep/paint/other****. Just plain YJ springs with cj rears added to them. All the sliders have escaped. I got a back tire a foot up the rti ramp at katemcy, and I've never had a problem lifting a tire cause of lack of flex.
with all due respect, Ryan, with all the weight on your rig (sprung and unsprung), you could probably use i-beams for springs and still flex like a yogi. The dude wants to do it right, so this thread is about doing it right.

[Violentv8toy]

springs are springs.....get some with thin leaves, relatively flat, SOA it, and call it good.

[CRaSHnBuRN]

Oh yeah, ugly, since you're takin pics, you want to show them how that top leaf on my rear springs is setup to help with the axle wrap? You know, take a pic of that half leaf?

[uglyota]

Oh yeah, ugly, since you're takin pics, you want to show them how that top leaf on my rear springs is setup to help with the axle wrap? You know, take a pic of that half leaf?
sorry, next time

[uglyota]

okay here goes:
get all the springs you can (that are the correct width) and line them up like this:
http://www.tamor.org/members-rigs/albums/album29/Dsc00003.jpg
look at arch, length and thickness of each and think about it this way:
http://www.tamor.org/members-rigs/albums/album29/springs.jpg
http://www.tamor.org/members-rigs/albums/album29/springs_001.jpg
make sure your main leaf is the right length or this could happen:
sitting a little high?
http://www.tamor.org/members-rigs/albums/album29/Dsc00007.jpg
by the way, everyone on pirate swore up and down that rear lift springs would fit in the stock locations with stock shackles on a pre-86 truck
http://www.tamor.org/members-rigs/albums/album29/Dsc00006.jpg
but what I really think you need to do is make some of these:
http://www.tamor.org/members-rigs/albums/album30/Dsc00009.jpg
and run a pair of these (63" chevys):
http://www.tamor.org/members-rigs/albums/album30/Dsc00010.jpg
Hope this helps

[AgDieseler]

Are you going to run that VW bumper too? Because that would be hard core. :D

[agjohn02]

okay here goes:

bunch of red x's

Hope this helps


id like to see the pics, see if you can fix the link

[usmcagg02]

id like to see the pics, see if you can fix the link

i can see them

[uglyota]

Are you going to run that VW bumper too? Because that would be hard core. :D
'53 chevy bumper, but 4x4 bugs ARE hard corps :)

id like to see the pics, see if you can fix the link
Try right click, show picture, or just go to my photo album in "member's rigs"

[agjohn02]

its not letting me see em. says im not authorized...

[Cody_91YJ]

might be your ISP John.
I just moved the server that is holding the members rigs, and your isp might not have the new DNS info yet...shouldn't take them much longer though. Cox is usually pretty damn slow and they were updated yesterday

[agjohn02]

ok, thanks Cody.

heres what it tells me:



Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /tamor/www/members-rigs/albums/ on this server.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Apache/1.3.29 Server at www.jeepyj.net Port 80

[Cody_91YJ]

yea, sounds like your still hitting the old server. Sent you a PM

[agjohn02]

still cant see eric's pics, but ive got my own now. on the way back from dove hunting this weekend (got lotsa doves and two rattlesnakes) i picked up a new"er" inner fender and stock scout springs. they are xlc, extra load capacity, springs with overloads in the rear. id like to be able to hook up to a large"ish" load and pull it but how much will these hurt me with flex, compression and will they cause it to sit high in the rear?

[uglyota]

Those overloads don't look like they'll affect anything except maybe a little compression. They'll help with axlewrap too.
Are the front "xlc" springs different? your new motor/tranny setup is a lot lighter than stock, so you might sit high. You may want to whorde a bunch of leafs and mix and match them. How wide are they?

[agjohn02]

Are the front "xlc" springs different? your new motor/tranny setup is a lot lighter than stock, so you might sit high.

good point and no there not different than regular springs. i guess they're called xlc, thats what the guy told me and i went with it. my engine is about 300 lbs lighter than an IH pig.





You may want to whorde a bunch of leafs and mix and match them. How wide are they?


they are 2" wide. i dont know of any other comon spring that is the same width. i can get my hands on one more set when i take my lift springs off.

[agjohn02]

went to tractor supply, home depot, and o'reilly's and none of em had graphite paint. other options? grease between the leaves? i really would like for them not to squeek.

[eight]

I thought you were wanting to do this right? Scrap those stock, non-milwrap, 2" wide springs. You really expect those to last? You seem to be capable of fab work, put some real springs under it.

[Jackasic]

got to John Deere, they sell it. Ask for Landon, he is a member.

[uglyota]

TSCO should have it too, it might not be with the paint...look with the 3-point hitch stuff

[agjohn02]

found it, did ya'll know the graphite paint is with the three pioint hitch stuff at tsc? how's about letting me in on that spring bushing removal trick you referred to... dont have a press and hammer and punch aint cuttin it.

[uglyota]

your welcome

torch out all the rubber and beat out the metal part with an air hammer if you've got it.

[uglyota]

so I didn't take my own advice (ran out of time and motivation) and threw together some packs that work pretty well...no prepping, just matched them up, cut to length, and smoothed the edges. Totally flat, flex okay, and smooth ride. Next I need to make shock towers, shocks, and extend brake lines to use all the flexhttp://www.tamor.org/members-rigs/albums/Shiloh-12-September-04/DSCF0019.jpg

[uglyota]

how's about letting me in on that spring bushing removal trick you referred to... dont have a press and hammer and punch aint cuttin it.
get them yet? This might work as well: http://advanceautoparts.com/english/youcan/html/pht/pht20021101bt.html

[agjohn02]

yeah, i got em. word of advice, if you ever need to drill holes in your springs for teflon sliders, dont take them to a machine shop to get it done just go to TSC and buy a drill press, its cheaper. definately dont think they can "just press the bushings out while they're at it, becasue they have a press" either. it took those morons four hours to drill 16 holes and get the bushings out. cost me more than a drill press. i was pissed.

on another note: would there be any problem with using grade 8 bolts for center pins? the bottom leaf has a 3/8" hole in it for the center pin, the rest are smaller holes. can i just enlarge the holes in the other leaves and use a 3/8" bolt. i didnt get a good look at the center pin because they threw them away at the machine shop, so i dont know whats special about them. the hole in my perch will clear the bolt head and the hole in my u-bolt plate will clear the nut.

[agjohn02]

DONE!

EZ-Slider graphite paint, Alcan teflon sliders, Energy Suspension bushings, and grade 8 5/16" center pins

[uglyota]

hey john you don't have any dimensions on the bushings in the above pic, do you?

new addition, and bump:
antiwrap leaf
http://www.tamor.org/members-rigs/albums/album19/DSCN0405.sized.jpg

[agjohn02]

just happen to have a spare right here.

1.2" ID of spring eye
2" wide spring
.125" shoulder
ID of bushing .610

gots me summa those same energy suspension bumps, just havent put em on yet. 15 bones at vatozone.

[agjohn02]

shackle question...

since my springs have settled the front shackles are leaning too far rearward and the cross piece in the middle makes contact with the hanger when stuffed. would it be dumb to just remove it all together? are all shackles tied together in the middle somehow?

http://tamor.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4935&stc=1

[eight]

The steering may be a little looser if you cut it out. Most stock shackles dont have it. Probably flex better without it. My little brother's rear shackles were hitting like that and we removed the braces, maked it ride much better, especially since last time I saw it he had a d44hd and a 14 bolt strapped down on a reciever hitch rack. If you want a brace you could probably weld a piece of flat bar on the front side without it interfering.

[agjohn02]

i just flexed it out and it didnt seem to be hitting all that bad. ill leave it in and if it becomes a problem this weekend ill take em out. the driveshaft doesnt look like its gonna hit after all and the pitman arm is close but i couldnt get it to contact. so, no bumpstops for now.

[agjohn02]

found this and thought id put it here.

it gives you different spring lengths, widths and off-sets

http://www.4x4spot.com/misc__spring_information.htm