Since this seems to be one of those "How did they do it at the factory? areas of question, I'll make
a point of taking some measurements.The location of the spacers can shift the center line of the
spring about an inch, so it should be pretty obvious where they belong once the center line of the holes in
spring perches are determined. That should settle it one way or the other whether the
service manual is right or wrong. Remember now....those manuals were written from
the engineers notes by a technical writer who probably never even saw the under
side of one of these trucks.
The tip than Fox and Dave posted was a good one and made the job of removing the pins
a snap. I'll have to replace a couple of the pins because of wear and I need to order
bushings for the shackles, Other than that, its just a pain in the ars crawling around
under these old trucks at my advanced age and damned hard to even get up off the
floor with the remnants of this broken wrist.
If anyone is contemplating a spring replacement, I'd highly recommend Eaton Detroit Spring.
My new springs are a near perfect match for the original springs. Only one small item the
is different, the rebound clips on the old spring were 1/4 x 1 with 3/8 bolts and the replacements,
3/16 x 3/4 with 5/16 bolts.
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/166170931 DG
