These spring clamps were made to replace the originals, which were damaged and mis-matched (two different types on same spring set!?!?). Is that original spec.? A local welding/fabricating shop did the folding for me. The bushes you see are for the front of main spring leaves. I don't know how, but I must have lost the original ones. I do know they were buggered, but would have been REALLY HELPFUL to give them to a lathe operator for duplication in original specifications. Guess they will turn up now that I don't need them any more.
Not a bad fit. All except one of the rivet shafts remained stuck firmly in their respective hole. The missing one was replaced by welding a very short piece of round rod to the clamp going in that location. I considered building up weld on all the clamps to replicate the rivet heads, but it would have taken me hours to whittle the blobs back to a round dome. I know, I tried it! I'm also too shakey to hold the grinder accurately. Maybe I could glue little wooden buttons on them.
I still need to remove the excess thread on the clamp bolts. Will do that in the morning, just before I 'string em up' for painting.
The spring 'eyes' at front were not round, so the new bushes had to be ground down to the right profile. I used a pedastal grinder with fine stone wheel. Once the bulk of the metal was removed, I finished off the last little bit of shaping with a hand file. I don't EVER want to do that job again. Painfully slow if you're as paranoid as I am about taking too much metal.
Despite being careful, the bushes were not a 100% perfect fit, which means the grease would have pumped out the sides instead of getting to the spring pins. That's bad! Sealed the bushes completely, using the pliable metal substitute that was used to rebuild the water necks of the engine heads. It's really good stuff, and I have no doubt that it will do the job. I have a sore thumb now, from forcing the stuff in between bush and spring eye. And Yes, I did remember to make the grease hole in both bushes. They even line up.
This is how the front springs used to look.
