Front Suspension

Now that the front axle has been straightened, I found a new leaf to replace the broken one in the front spring and started assembling the front end today.  I painted all the spring leaves so they wouldn't rust like before and found some waterproof lithium grease with Teflon in it.  I coated the leaves and assembled them with all new bolts.  Then, new bushings and spring hangers in the end of spring and spring perches.  I did a loose assembly to check everything before bolting the spring to the frame and found that the spring perch bolts did not fit the axle tightly.  Now that everything else is tight and new we can't have the spring perch moving around.  The hole was .012  bigger than the bolt so off I go to Grainger to buy some shim stock.  All the auto parts used to keep shim stock but no one uses it anymore so Grainger is the only place that keeps it.  After shimming the perches, everything is nice and tight again.  Next I will press in the new kingpin bushings and ream them to fit the new kingpins.  Then I will clean up the front end and repaint.  The axle lost a lot of paint in the press Wednesday and the springs will need new paint after the grease is done oozing out between the leaves.  I just had to jump up and down on the frame to see what the new suspension felt like.  I do believe it's much tighter than I remember from the last time I was in the car!  Too bad Mike wasn't here to photograph that!  Later. SS

Axle and springs.

Spring perch bolt.