Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

Westinghouse Airsprings/Shocks
Restauration in progress ..........
after 50, 60 years ... maybe 90 ...this main seal never work
like it has to.

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Hello Carl24,
If the seals are leather and can't be reproduced or replaced I have used neatsfoot oil to revitalize the leather sealing properties of leather seals. I soaked the leather seals to a manual 2 cylinder rocker arm air pump that was made between WW1 and WW11, I used the pump to deliver air to a homemade shallow water diving helmet for a Boy Scout troop demonstration. The oil is available and soaking the leather for a few days/weeks won't hurt the leather. Hope this helps if all else fails.
Regards, Steve

Double boiled linseed oil (available at any hardware store) will also work wonders revitalizing leather. I've brought many a pump seal back from brittle and 'hard as a rock' to soft and subtle, by soaking them in linseed oil. Make sure you get double boiled as untreated linseed oil can leave a sticky residue. Just another suggestion.....

Thank you guys for help. I found 2 diffrent seal materials into the springs.
One was leather .. and ... maybe the younger one was made from.... textile diped in
any of this rubber/synthetic stuff and galvanized into this form.
There is no way to bring this seals back into the condition they has to be .. to work on the
right way. The leather is very soft because it was always covert in oil. But the consistency of this natural product is after 90 years soaket in oil not the same anymore. The lip at the edge is gone by hundretthousend moves up and down.. The only way to bring the airspring back in work is .. to replace this seal by a new one. I found a company over here in Germany which is try right now to rebuild this leatherseal. They build very similar ones for current hydraulicsystems which need this old style leatherpieces. By the way.. I know this material to revitalize old friable leather. It was developed by specialized museum to restore historical material on furniture ... etc..... I dont mean this leathersoftener you can buy to care your actual car leather. I used this stuff to restore the leather interieur of two importand historical cars. But this procedure needs a couple steps and a lot of time. It makes only sense
on histroical cars of special significance. And it is much more expensive than to make it new.