The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk '42 rear spring questions

The axle in my truck was replaced with a late-model chevy rear before I got it. I've got it out right now to rebuild the rear springs, which are really sloppy on their bushings. Two questions:

1. How do you press the pins out of the bushings so you can get the springs off the frame brackets? Seems like you'd put it in a hydraulic press, and push on the side opposite the grease fitting. I loosened up the nut on the housing, and gave the pin a few whacks with a hammer, but nothing moved, so I figured I'd ask here before beating on it more or putting it in a press.

2. What needs to be done to keep the sping from winding up, now that this is an open driveline? It seems to me that the rear hanger is going to let the spring move all over the place when you try to accelerate. I see that Chevy's of the 40's sells a new spring set with some kind of different ends that are supposed to avoid this, but I really don't want to buy a whole new set of springs ($500!!!). I'm sure somebody here has dealt with this--I'd appreciate the advice.

Thanks in advance!

Just found my shop manual! Looks like these are 3/4 ton springs. There's no pictures of them, but they don't look like the 1/2 ton springs. I'll go find a bigger hammer and see what happens.

Anybody, particularly on #2???

For the bushings try this. It's under in the tips section and works slick.
http://www.stovebolt.com/techtips/bushingpuller.htm

In the days of leaf spring rear end suspension we used a traction bar that goes from the axle housing to the frame to stop spring wrap up. works good and makes the rear tires plant on the pavement better. You used to be able to buy a kit from speed shops.

You have to work at it pretty hard to get a multi-leaf spring to wind up. However, it's not all that hard with monoleafs. Here's a picture of my old 63 Nova with monoleafs and traction bars:
[img]http://www.chevyasylum.com/63chevy2/63chevy2_424w.jpg[/img]

They worked fine and controlled wheel hop caused by spring wrap. That was on a 2500 lb car with about 375 hp and a manual trans.

My 64 C10 probably weighs almost twice what the Nova did and has maybe 150 hp on a good day. But it has rear coils...and the most I can get out of it is a mild chirp of a rear wheel now and then. Not that I race the truck, but if I open up the 4-barrel as it's crossing a painted line on the road, it'll chirp.

Anyway, if you're running multi-leaf springs and aren't putting a lot of power to the rear wheels, traction bars or slider bars (Cal-Traks) will probably result in a ride that's rougher than you want and probably aren't required.

Lugnut--Thanks. I looked for info in the Tech Tips, but hadn't found that one.

Chevman32--I've been thinking about doing that. This rear end has mounting holes by the pinion for that, and I saved the bolts that go there from the donor car, so I may try to rig something up.

ChevyAsylum--I'm going to be putting 275-300 hp to the rear (Corvette 350 through a T-5), so I think I'll be able to twist 'em. I'm hoping slapper bars can be a last resort. It's a modern drivetrain, but I'm keeping the outside appearance of the truck as stock as I can, and I'd rather nto have the visible bars.

Good advice guys--keep it coming!

I couldn't find the post about home made traction bars, but I may have seen it in a classic trucks magazine. They are essentially a copy of the standard series on this link:
http://www.rockymountainsusp.com/tractionbars.htm

If you paint them black they will be barely noticeable and still look kind of old. I think these are the ones chevman32 is talking about. Besides axle wrap you are gonna need some way to get that much power to the ground with the light rear end in that pickup.

Are you boxing the frame? Good luck with your second gear synchros in that T5, hope you had the parts upgraded.

The front end of the frame will be boxed past the transmission mounts, but right now, I'm not planning on boxing any further back than that. The T-5 is out of a V-8 camaro (with an S-10 tailhousing swapped on to move the shifter forward), so I think it'll survive as long as I don't do too many drag-style 1-2 upshifts.

Those traction bars look interesting, definitely makeable-at-home!

I'm bumping this back up to the top, 'cause I'm still confused as to what I've got. AND I'm having trouble finding rebuild parts for the 3/4 ton springs.

The spring packs on mine are 7 leaves, and the rear shackle is a large casting, which leads me to believe that these are 3/4 ton springs. I was just searching through old posts, and came across this thread: http://www.stovebolt.com/bboard/cgi-bin//ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=22;t=005570#000000/ Now, my frame sweeps up over the axle like the one in the picture. I assumed that this was a 3/4 ton frame, but Rusty Rod's comment makes me wonder if somebody swapped 3/4 springs onto a 1/2 ton frame...

Anyway, I'm trying now to find parts to rebuild the spring bushings, and I don't see any parts in any of the catalogs I have. Does anybody make replacement bushings and pins??? I just called Chevies of the '40's, and they said they didn't have anything except the rebuilt shackles and whole new spring assemblies. I'd rather fix mine than do whole new ones...

The rear spring hangers, or shackels use pins, bushings, two side plates and one bolt. The pins are threaded into the bushings, the bushings are pressed into the spring and frame mount. The front of the spring is heald in by a big bolt. Take the lock nut off and unthread the big bolt out of the spring hanger. Use some sort of press and remove the bushings. Joe

Darby,

Stop by a good spring shop..the one I go to rebuilds or makes springs...not just installs them. They will have bins full of pins, bushings, shackles etc.
Hang onto the lock nuts...those are hard to get.

The main spring bolts are a replaceable. As far as getting the bushings out, I mashed mine out with a hammer. I left the old eye bolt in the bushing and it came out. I used the same eye bolt to knock new ones back in. Crude...but I don't have access to a press. They came out without too much work and I did not hurt me or the truck.