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Rear leafs painted today.

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New springs may seem a little stiff. If so, they should work better after a few hundred miles of driving once the leaves bed in. Lubricate as directed.

TxGoat,

Thanks for the tidbit on spring stiffness.

Waiting to hear back from Eaton on their recommendation on lubrication and type to use.

Will follow up and post here when I hear back from them.

As I was going through Eaton's tech questions I found this.

"Leaf Finish

Mike,

Please can you inform what’s the best/correct finish for both the visible and invisible (IN THE STACK) parts of leaf springs?

A couple of people I know insist on painting them totally including all in between the leafs, the normal for them bondaprimer / undercoat / enamel topcoat layers.

(They do have to externally visually match body finish on some vehicles)

While I don’t have any expertise in this area at all (as the following may well prove!), it seems as it just chafes out in weeks from between the leafs, prevents grease type protection adhering, harbors dirt and causes more rust than otherwise…

Regards -Dave

Dave,

We do not recommend that any coating of any kind be applied to the inner surfaces of a leaf spring. The coating, whether it be paint or powder coating, WILL wear off due to interleaf friction. When the coating wears off, looseness between the leaves will appear. This looseness will allow the leaves extra movement which can cause premature breakage of the leaves or cause the center-bolt to shear.

The rusting between the leaves is a natural thing caused by the interleaf fiction.

Grease has an adverse reaction to spring steel which causes the steel to degrade and weaken the spring, so we do not recommend using grease/graphite between the leaves.

The appearance of rust is something that has to be lived with. See what I had to say about Painting vs. Powder Coating vs. Chroming springs.

-Mike"


I just got off the phone with Mike and he stated grease is not recommended.



Thanks
Tom

Got the Packard up and running a few weekends ago

Today was a beautiful to take it for a drive

This was Bryces first ride in it. He 1 year 7 months

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Good morning
Friend picked up the Packard with his trailer yesterday. We got hit with high winds and a heavy down pour on the the way back to his house. Here he is blowing off the water













He will be installing the new leaf springs.

I should of taken some more photos.
From the back you can see it sure does lean to the passenger side. Once we got it dried off he raised it up we got under and sure enough the old spring are flat waving etc.

I am going to ask him to take some etrxa photos for me before disassemble it.

I hope the new springs will straighten out the camber issue on the front. Not sure the mileage since I installed the new tires but the front are really shafered. Going to need to replace them once we get camber, toe-in etc. dialed back in.

Have a great Sunday

Just in from my friend working on the Packard leaf springs







I would say the spring and shackle bolts have seen better days. A little worn after 93 years.

He mention after putting the new springs in (temporarily bolted up) the Packard had raise up at least an inch or two. 😁

On top of that he said left front tire has gone flat...probably going to need a new tube.

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Looks like they went for a time without any lubrication at some point in the distant past. I believe there were fiber seals/washer that kept the lubricant in.

He did mention the holes for the Bijur Lubrication system were plugged with gunk.
When I restored the car I did pull all he lines and metering pins and cleaned them out. However I did not drop the springs which I should have at that time and did a more better job of cleaning the holes etc.

Thanks goodness I am having him tackle this project. He had to make a special tool to get the front bolts of the rear springs out. He said with the running board and side skirt in the way he could get his air/hammer chisel in there to knock the out with out having to pull the running boars and side skirt.

He is pipe fitter by trade and very smart and creative in making tools etc...

I will need to call Max Merritt to see if they have the bolts in stock.