I used to cut my own spring pads with my torch but it took forever to clean up all the cuts and get em to match each other. A couple of years ago I finally figured out a way to do it much simpler and cleaner! Anyone on here should be able to do this and rather then hand your hot rod or trailer supply shop your money do this yourself with scrap steal. I start off cutting two pieces of 2"x2"x3/16" square tube 6" long. Next drill a 5/8" hole in the centre of of your tubing(this is to sit over your leafspring pin. Next thing is cut a piece of 1"x2" rectangle tubing 6" long and drill a 3/16" hole in the middle of each of the 1" sides like above. 5/8" holes you just drilled go to the outsides Clamp all three together with your trusty visegrips like so..... Put in your drillpress or vise and holesaw a 3" hole in the tubes,but just into the topside.Then flip over and do the same to bottomside. This what you should end up with..... Next put it back in your chopsaw and cut the top part off. Should be cutting on the white lines.Get it?? Should end up with two pieces that look like this. These are your new springpads.... Sometimes I hafta grind where the whitelines are in the above pic because the some diffs are a lil bigger then other diffs.... Its as easy as 1,2,3 and you don't hafta fork out the beans to another shop owner. Keep the 1"x2" piece around for future springpads you'll need.I've had the same one forever! I also make 2"x3",2"x4",2"x5" for different and desired ridehieghts.Way better then running lowering blocks.I also have a few different sizes on hand in case I wanna switch ridehieghts. I usually cut the 2" tubes on an angle and cap the ends to make it have a cleaner look on the finished rearend in the hot rod. Hope I saved some of you some future spent dough......Shiny
It's amaizing the stuff you guys come up with! Simple and effective...they way I like things. I'm stealing this idea!!
Been doing it this way for many years. You can also use just one chunk of wider material Say 2" X 6", find center, hole saw, part down the center and make axle pads with built in lowering blocks.
The Jalopy Journal
