How square is your truck? :)

[Alvin in AZ]

Thought my Bronco might need some adjustable bushings, but turns out it
don't. One front tire had too much camber since I got it. :/ It leans to
the driver's side

I measured the crap out of everything underneath it including whether the
frame was square, diamonded or twisted. Turns out it was only-not-square
with the -ground-.

So, I put a scissor jack between the rear axle and the frame (driver's side)
and jacked it up to the point the Bronco was squared-up in -all- directions
and, its funny "cocked" front wheel it had, was straightened-out too and
so then it matched the other side -perfect- at that point.

So now I know what I need to do.

I'll re-arch the leaf springs myself using a sledge hammer (BTDT before on
my '75 F150) and that'll straighten the whole works up, like the scissor jack
did. Might have to tweak it if I don't get it right-enough the first time
but I know I'll get it real close-to-right the fist try.

Whatcha think?

How squared-up is the rear suspension on your truck?

Alvin in AZ

 

[flareside_thunder]

Can you explain your re-arching process?

Oh, and my squareness depends on how much crap is in the bed and where.....

 

[D427COBRA]

I'd be interested in hearing about re-arching with the sledge too.

 

[Truckin4life]

My guess is supporting the ends and goin to town on the center with the sledge.

 

[Alvin in AZ]

I was at Pima Spring shop waiting to talk to the owner and watched very
carefully the two guys re-arching springs by hand.

They looked to have 8 to 10 pound single jacks and spent at least half
their time and effort throwing the leaf, they just hammered-on, up on the
table and looked at how they all matched up (with them laying on their
sides) then yank it back out of the pack and hammer on a it several licks
and throw it back on the table again. Over and over and over and over!
On and on and on. The trick is, lots of hits and care in getting the curves
to be smooth and matched-up nice, as if it'd been re-arched using rollers.

IME a 10 pound sledge hammer is plenty for the thin 5/16" leaves but for
the 5/8" thick overload leaves it wouldn't budge. Had to go get me a used
16 pound head and put a handle in it, to "move" those. LOL

It's a good work out and I found it fun, YMMV. In the early 90's on the
newsgroups there were old hot rodders that talked about needing to turn
a spring from a "frown" into a "smile" and it was a real work out to do that!
Heck, I guess. LOL

For an "anvil" I used a 3 foot piece of 136 pound per yard railroad rail and
hammered it into the hard, dry desert ground -sideways- at least three
times. After a leaf hit me in the knee and had me hobbling around for about
three weeks LOL I hammered a couple stakes into the ground to use as
a guard. That's a cooler idea than it sounds like because it allowed me to
work harder at hammering and put less effort in being careful, that alone
made it a good idea IMO.

Paint the sides of a leaf pack so you can have 'em all apart and not have
to keep track of 'em.

Decide ahead of time how much lift you want and hammer-in (33%?) more
lift into them so when it settles back after months of use, you'll still have
what you wanted. Nothing weird about that, that's a well known property
of springs and Ford prob'ly rolled them into a curve then mashed 'em flat at
the factory to take care of the "new spring set property" all new springs
have.

Alvin in AZ
ps- Looked back at my old FTE posts and realized they were mostly about
defending the dangged process instead of helping make it easy for others
to use it or try it out. :/

Back in the early 90's on Usenet's Newsgroups noticed guys would lineup
to tell you...
"it won't work"
"it's a stupid idea"
"it ain't worth doing anyway"
"nobody's ever been done that way"
"you are stupid to even think about doing it yourself!"
Etc.
Ah, heck, "it's just people being people" -Alvin

Ford was the first to "arch" your leaf springs by running flat, heat treated
springs through some rollers to give them a curve to start with. So cold
working them to "re-arch" them is nothing new and if done real good, like
using rollers again or hammering the crap out of 'em with a jillion little hits
(not just a few real hard licks) is actually an improvement of the spring's
properties even. No kidding.

One defense was why-not-to ever re-heat-treat a spring, especially one
that's got any rust on it at all. There's an outfit that makes a big deal
about anything -less than their expensive re-heat treating process- will
ruin your springs ...when just the opposite is the truth. LOL
(existing hydrogen cracks, if nothing else)

Another defense of the process is the fact that on my '75 F150 I found
-from the factory now- one leaf pack's locating pin is 5/8" closer to the
front eye than on the other leaf pack! Someone at Ford picked-out one
of those packs to match my frame so it wouldn't crab down the road!
Thank you whoever you are!

If I were to buy a new set of springs for my pickup without moving the
spring holders it would go down the road sideways like a Chevy typically
would of that era. Remember the Chevys being like that? Brand spanking
new, with stickers all over the windows ...and going down the highway
friggin' sideways. LOL

 

[LEB Ben]

alvin...outta curiousity, how many times can you go about re-arching your springs that way before it does start having a negative impact? I'd imagine a time or two would be perfectly fine, but much more than that would inhibit strength and stability, right?

 

[Alvin in AZ]

alvin...outta curiousity, how many times can you go about re-arching your
springs that way before it does start having a negative impact? I'd imagine
a time or two would be perfectly fine, but much more than that would inhibit
strength and stability, right?

Theory sez: cold working the spring improves it.

"in theory, theory and practice are the same, in practice they ain't "

I don't know the answer to your question really, I only studied spring
metallurgy a little bit. :/ Seems like shot peening would go a long way
in helping tho.

But one thing's for sure, rust is real bad for springs and so automotive
springs kinda catch hell anyway.

Haven't been able to re-find it, thought it was in the Ford Shop Manual,
that leaf springs were to be kept oiled to reduce rust and so the whole
pack would work together.

Alvin in AZ