Spring experience(kinda long)

[Guest Dave Claussen]

Just thought I'd share with the forum readers an experience I had while working on my leaf springs. As some of you may know, the leaf springs in the rear on trucks are attached in the front with a pin that drives out from the inside of the frame. The spring "hinges" on the pin when there is a load in the back or you go over a bump in the road. The rear of the spring is attached to the frame by a "U" shaped bracket (for lack of a better term I can think of) that has a coupler nut that is threaded on the inside for the U bracket and threaded on the outside for the rolled end of the spring. After cutting the U bolts holding on the rear end and removing the rear end it was time to remove the springs. One side came off with relative ease but try as I might I couldn't get the other side off. I soaked the double threaded coupler for a week or two with penatrating oil and still no progress. I was resolved to cutting the U bracket off and drilling the coupler out. But before I did that I wanted to see if the front spring attached with the same type hardware. My thought was I might be able to use it if it became necessary to cut the rear one. As it turned out the brackets etc. were the same. So I worked on getting those parts off the front springs. Again, one side came off easily while the other side did not. I was able to get the coupler to move but it was not threading out off the spring. Then by close observation while turning the coupler I noticed as I was trying to loosen it, it was threading INTO the spring, not out. It's a left hand thread!! I immediately went to the rear spring and sure enough, that one was a left hand thread as well. I guess I should have known since the lug nuts are left hand on one side of the truck and right hand on the other. But all's well that ends well, I guess. They say you learn something new every day. If you don't, you're just not paying attention.

I hope this helps someone out there from making the same mistake. It cost me about 2 weeks of time before I figured it out.

[52B3B108]

Great story. Thanks for blazing the trail for the rest of us.

[IanT_Qld]

Yep - something definately worth remembering.