Spring unsprung?

[zakimodo]

Hi All

This weekend I was installing some pinion angle shims. As such, I had to change out the center pin to one that was a little taller.

I removed the driverside pin having forgotten to clamp the springs together (like I did on the passenger side) and only the bottom two short leaves fell off. The rest of the spring pack held together. I have never had leaf springs apart but would have thought that all of the leaves would have tried to separate.

To add to my suspicion, when I jacked the car up. I noticed that the driver's side didn't sag near as much as the passenger side.

These are ~11 year old SS springs (I think I have two drivers side springs, I know they are the same)

 

[Murray]

Longer leaves have clamps on their ends, will try to separate but won't fall off.

 

[zakimodo]

Longer leaves have clamps on their ends, will try to separate but won't fall off.

Good point. I didn't see them want to separate at all.

 

[Murray]

Might be normal as longer leafs usually have similar arcs- not a lot of pressure to separate. I rebuilt the original springs on my '68 cuda 383, arcs between the individual leafs was not that great, but still enough to require a clamp to assemble the center bolt. Good luck.