Why do guys wrap their leaf springs?

Probly a dumb question, and I have a few ideas of potential benefits, but what are the reasons for wrapping leafsprings? Im refering primarily to transverse, early ford stuff.. I've seem springs wrapped tight in electrical tape, as well as other stuff.. Why?
I know some cars came with the springs wrapped from the factory to keep them quiet I ***ume?

What say you?

 

Jaguar actually had a really gorgeous setup for this. Leather wraps, with hooks for lacing them with a leather cord. Early XK series cars had them, and you could get the leather in black, brown, or raw leather and have it it dyed by the dealership to match the paint. They also had a grease fitting on them to pump them full of grease.

Aside from being aesthetically pleasing, they also kept the squeaking at bay.

 

sometimes they w****d the front of the leafs to keep them from twisting or wrapping under a heavy load,sorta like ******* bars.with the front wrapped tight the pinion angle doesnt change as much and the rear of the spring moves to still let the suspension move.

 

Back in the day folks oiled their leaf springs to cut down on squeeking so they wrapped them to keep the oil in and dirt out. It's one of those things that went away when modern leaf springs started using plastic sliders or ****ons.

 

This was standard fare in a few of the heavy American and Euro cl***ics. The springs were wrapped in a burlap webbing to hold the oil and then covered in sheetmetal segments to retain the burlap and keep dirt out. The sheetmetal coverings were done a few different ways. There's a guy in OH that specializes in making them. The covers are called spring gaiters, and yes the early efforts were leather and lend a good looking point of interest. I'll edit this response later at the shop with the guy's name and contact info if anyone's interested.


As promised:

Rudy Rosales

Rudy's Custom Made Gaters Cleveland, OH

216 641 7711

He will fax you a sheet with dimensions, you fill it in and fax back, he'll call you with a quote. For the right car he's pretty reasonable.

 

Ayers & Highlander made some good points. As an "historical" reference, I remember in the early '70s when rodders were looking for alternatives. One of those was to restack the leaves with strips of Teflon fabric.

Myself, I think the gaiters were kinda cl***y, in the sense of a cool, now outmoded technique. The rear springs on my '38 Plymouth have them.

 

My Rolls Limo in my avatar had a automatic factory system that lubricated all sorts of things on the ch***es including the springs. The gaters were to keep the lubricant from dripping, something a proper Rolls Royce could never be accused of doing.
Ya Right!

 

Yes, it was common to lubricate the springs when ***embling them. It makes the ride softer, reduced the sliding friction between leafs when flexing. Many 40s-50s production cars had a metal case enclosing the spring to keep the the grease in.

It's not a procedure lost in the past. Many people, as I do, still lube the spring leafs when ***embling after rearching. I use white ***embly lube on my jalopies. I don't wrap them. If the the grease oozing out constantly bothered me I might, but it don't. Just wipe it off

 

Looks.

 

The same purpose as the rubber boots on ball joints and tie rod ends....they keep the grease in and the dirt out. There were not a lot of paved roads when spring gaiters became popular. The nice thing about the poly spring liners and the poly spring ****ons is that they are a dry lubricant that dust and dirt does not stick to.

 

Here's a Jag one,,t******* down the long one to match the short,,its a very nice fit on teh front of a Model A spring

 

I use a Model A set on my '34 Ford front spring. It gives the spring a "finished" appearance.

Jim

 

I learned that in the 60's from a local rodder that became a good friend. He had been doing that for many years. I grind the leaves smooth then cover them with grease and, after ***embling them, wrap them with a couple layers of electrical tape. Like some have said, keeps the water and dirt out and the grease in.

 

my 53 had the sheetmetal as the HIGHLANDER says..guess it worked they were the original springs on the car as far as i could tell until i did an open drive line conversion

 

Gotta add this one to "the things I've learned this week here". Knew what they were for, just didn't know they were called Gaters. My '37 Chevy coupe "barn-find" had them, but they were so rusted, that the first time I lifted the rear of the car and let the axle hang, they practically fell off. I helped them the rest of the way off.

 

I w****d the rear springs on my 38 Chevy with a snap on vinyl covers. Lots easier to keep them looking clean.

 

and where did this snap on vinyl cover, come from.??? thanks

 

It may be a bit modern, but you can actually get heatshrink tubing big enough to cover a spring pack, grease the springs, slip it on, hairdryer and you have a neat looking spring with no mess.
Im going to do mine with the leftover leather after my interior is done. those lugs on the Jag boots are cool, they look like the ones used on loggers lace up boots.

 

Early Ford springs were built with slight grooves running the length of the leaves on both sides. When ***embled this provided a nice groove the length of and between each leaf. The through bolt in the center had a long nut on the bottom that extended past the end of the threads. This nut had a groove the length of the nut and a grease zerk was screwed into the bottom of this nut. When greased the grease traveled the length of the through bolt and down each groove and completely filled the spring with grease. These covers were an accessory to keep dirt out and the grease in. I just replaced the springs on my 1939 Coupe and instead of grease I installed "Poly Liner" to keep my springs a little cleaner.

 

I used to run tri 5 stock cars and w****d a lot of springs after greasing them, also bent a lot of spring packs too!
the taping if too agressive will stiffen the spring rate up
it sure kept the dirt out too

 

Springs were lubed so they wouldn't wear out... remember we used to buy things ONCE and keep them in good repair. A set of well kept springs could, theoretically, last the life of the vehicle.

If you've done a lot of spring work you've noticed how worn the surfaces get after many years... dirt, rust, road salt, etc. take their toll.

 

cause it looks cool.....
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=151686&highlight=electrical+tape+leaf+springs ....
...i posted a picture out of an old mag in this tread.... check it out...

 

I have a couple Ford transverse springs in the garage, can't remember what year. They have tin wraps with grease fittings in the tins.
Also, I always grease spring packs when ***embling them.

 

I oiled up my new front springs before putting them in, they work so smooth that my shocks are now inadequate! The friction is a good dampener. Admittedly trucks are sprung a lot stiffer than a rod.

 

Heres a shot of my T roadster i'm building. Wrapped the front spring with leather. I like all the original historical resons for wrapping springs. I wrapped mine because the spring looked like hell.
-Don

 

My 50 Dodge has metal ones,they appear to be galvinized.They are still full of grease.

 

Sewed them up one day myself.

 

whhhhhhhaaaaaaatttttttttttttt?

 

FWIW.....I had a customer come to me complaining that his dirt track modified had a bad front end push. He had greased his front buggy spring and wrapped it with duct tape to keep the **** out. Problem is he had wrapped directly to the spring leaves and that bound up the spring so it acted like a solid bar.

I removed his tape job, wrapped the greased spring with a section of lawn/leaf bag then taped over the leaf bag with electrical tape. That allowed the spring leaves to slide over each other as designed and he got his handling back.

Lesson learned....never tape directly to the spring !

 

That's my question, should you prewrap the spring so it moves independent of the tape, or if you use elecrical tape does it allow the spring to move freely even though it's taped direct? I'm prepping a spring for my T roadster now, and had thought about taping it for the look, but I'm trying to soften up the ride too.