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MG MGA - Leaf springs
Hello to all, I am wondering if anyone has taken their leaf springs apart to refinish individually. If so how can this be done? It appears that the clips are bent and riveted into place, can't quite figure out how I would get everything back together again. Can the existing clips be reused? Thanks in advance for any help/advice....Don P. |
D.S. Prince |
Don, I doubt if many people dis-assemble the leaf springs. Replacement ones are available from several sources, at a reasonable proce. I got mine from Scarborough Faire, but then decided to stay with the originals springs because they looked OK and were not banana shaped or too flat. I sand blasted them and repainted them and they look great. Andy |
Andy Preston |
You can pry the clips back far enough to remove the leaves. The metal is fairly soft. Just bend back after you've cleaned everthing up. Garland |
GD Glenn |
You need a 2 lb sledge hammer to open up the clips and close them again. There may be wear ridges where the end of one leaf eats into the next. These can be smoothed off with a grinder. One good thing about refurbishing is that new springs seem to have way too much camber. |
A Pearse |
Instead of replacing leaf springs they can be repaired and rearched. The springs are dissasembled and any damaged leaves replaced. The leaves that are reused are heated up and retempered. To open and close the clips heat not a sledge hammer should be used. This is a common repair on trucks. I use Denver Spring. http://www.denverspringandsuspension.com/repair.htm Most spring shop work is for big trucks but this one does work on any size. A competent spring shop can make any spring you can specify. Usually when I use them it is to repair a set with one broken leaf. They match the two springs so they are even in height and rate. |
R J Brown |
Some MGB springs have the nylon sheets between each leaf. I wonder what this does to the spring rate? and ability for the spring to recover. I was once considering fitting those RV8 type parabolic springs to my Racing MGA....They were not as expensive as I thought they were. Cheers Mark. |
Mark Hester |
This thread was discussed between 02/01/2009 and 06/01/2009
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