My first experience with leaf spring disassembly and reassembly was around 1965. The only time I have seen something like this was if the center hole wasn't "centered" in each leaf and I or somebody else put them back together all wonky or if the leaves had been damaged somehow. When you get them apart, look and see. It is really difficult to tell from just your images, but it almost looks like those leaves are twisted or something. And I can't imagine how a spring shop could have done that, but they aren't sitting as they should. Please look at the attached image. This spring was taken completely apart and cleaned...I bought it new many years ago but it had sat around a while and picked up some rust and I wanted to see if it needed attention.
I’m leaning heavily toward it being ME that screwed up the spring. But my simple brain can’t yet figure out how.
The retaining clips, are they typically riveted through multiple leaves or just one and then wrapped around the others? Can I just secure the stack with a clamp and pry them open to disassemble?
In an interesting side note, the image on Jim Carter’s website of the 1/2 ton leaf spring has the st Louis spring stamping. And it also has the center nut on the top (wrong) side of the stack. This place has an excellent reputation and I’m not trying to defame them. Just wondering if there’s a backstory here.
