Well it has been some time since I have posted, but with our blasting cabinet up and running now and a few small other projects taken care of, we have resumed work on the front suspension of the truck. So far its just been blasting and painting. Soon as we get both springs done , the axle can go on, and the I will start work on the brake hubs and assemblies. We have already got the axle and axle to spring hardware ready to go, and as of this posting we have both spindles ready to go on and one spring is ready, all that is left is the drivers side spring and the axle will get mounted.
This week I disassembled the front passenger leaf spring, blasted it all and painted it along with both spindles. The spring was in good shape, no cracks that I could find after cleaning it. The spring it held together with 4 clamps, and 1 center bolt. The center bolt is pretty mangled, however given its head fits into the block it sits on and locates it, I don't think the bolt holds much weight, and will reuse the bolt unless I find a reason to replace it. The spring clamps are divided into 2 sets, ones that are riveted to a spring leaf at the bottom and hold them all together, and ones that are towards the ends that are held together by small leaf springs that face the opposite direction of the rest of the spring pack, putting pressure on the clamp. The eye of the spring where it mounts to the non-shackle side of the frame , the brass bronze bushing inside the eye is unevenly worn, or it took shape of the oblong hole it was pressed into, but not worn through. We wont replace that for now either.
The spindles seem to be in good shape except for the thrust ball bearings that go with it. One was ok, but the other was trashed. On the good side at some point my father bought a set of king pins, bushings for the kingpins, and a set of those thrust washers. Im not sure if any of this is new, some if it is obviously used, but its all in good condition. After spending some time with a set of calipers and all the bushings and king pins it seems like I do not need to press the new set of bushings in, the old bushings showed minimal wear and felt fine, maybe just a slight polish with some scotchbrite and we should be good to go.
The photos are of pre and post cleaning and painting of the spindles and springs, and some stamped on numbers on the leaf springs that I found.
