I don't know if this is acceptable or not, I posted most of this a couple weeks ago,...... so if this is old news to you sorry. Back in the 70's I built a spring spreader from plans in Rod Action magazine, hooked it up to a partial unpacked 40 rear spring and started cranking away, well when the spring was spread almost enough to get the shackles lined up, the stupid thing folded up, the spring went flying and just about took my head off. A old friend of mine had been using a variation of this method for a very long time, this isn't new to a lot of you, but I have found this to be the safest easiest way to mount and dismount a transverse spring especially if you are working alone,............. I just happened to have a camera handy when I put a rear spring on a 34 rear axle for "The Blue Racer". First you take 2 large beefy C clamps and put them on either side of the Pack center bolt and reef em down,.. then get a "All Thread" rod, 4 large flat washers, and a couple nuts for it, unbolt the center bolt ( or cut the head of it off ) remove the old bolt and replace it with the All Thread, 2 washers on top and two washers on the bottom and tighten up the nuts. Next you remove the pack clips, there in about 6" from the spring eye on either side, slowly remove the 2 big clamps, then you just start backing off the two nuts on the All Thread slowly, keep a eye on the spring to make sure none of the leaves are trying to walk out (this has never happened to me "yet" ) After the spring is apart you can just mount the main leaf (this is really easy to do), tighten up your shackles, take your All Thread rod with with the nut and 2 washers on the top and put the leafs you want to use on it than just set it on the main leaf, put the 2 washers and nut on the bottom and start to tighten it back up ( again making sure none of the leafs are trying to walk out on you ) it draws the spring pack back together and keeps the center hole lined up,......... When the spring pack draws back tight, put your 2 big beefy C clamps back on either side of the center hole like in the first picture, remove the All Thread, replace the center bolt and pack clips,...... remove the C clamps and,............ Ta Da ! it's ready to go back in the car. I know this is pretty simple and rudimentary for most of you guys,.. but you would be surprised how many guys that I run across that never thought of this.
you can double nut one end of the rod and chuck the other end in your drill motor hold a wrench to the nut on the long end and spin it down quick
I thought about that Paul, the only reason I never did that was I was a little concerned about some of the leafs going side ways and the spring pack getting out of controll with a load still on it,.....
I did this once & had the all-thread strip on me as it was being tightened down. I ended up using the C-clamps as it went back together to take some of the pressure off the all-thread. Tighten nut, Tighten C-clamp, Tighten nut, Tighten C-clamp.... Eventually I got it back together. After seeing the all-thread strip, I felt a little better knowing that I had those C-clamps for "back up" incase that $2 piece of Chinese all-thread decided to snap during reassembly. If anyone cares.... Great tech. Thanks for posting. JH
When we needed to put the spread the spring for my Dad's Model B roadster we used a giant riggers turnbuckle, the kind with cable hooks that screw into each end. I think it was originally phone company gear. We wedged it in between the eyes and wrapped aircraft cable around each of the hooks to secure them to the spring and then cranked it out forcing the spring open. If someone here was handy with a welder they could probably make an even better/safer rig using the depth bar (top link) from a three point hitch off one of the old 8Ns/Fergusons/John Deeres we have to climb over looking for the last 32 three-window barn-find. Fab up some ends that clamp around the top of the spring an "you is in bidness".
absolutely, I should have included that, the drill motor was only to spin the nut down quick not to compress the pack use the clamps to compress
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