[RHClarke]

The front and rear spring assemblies were the focus of my most recent activities. All four springs were disassembled and while there was some wear evident, there were no cracks visible. Some of the individual spring leafs had lost a few degrees of arc, but I don't think that re-arching will be necessary.

Next the shocks were inspected. The two rear shocks had no resistance and the arm rotated from stop to stop with a clunk. The arms on the shocks were different from others I had in stock, so they were salvaged. This involved cutting between the shock arm and the shock body. The arms were then heated by torch and the center stud was punched out. We tried to remove the shock arms with our press, but got no movement whatsoever. The shock arms are pressed on to a finely splined shaft, which has a remarkable amount of surface area that builds up a lot of resistance over the years from use and rust. This left the drastic action of destroying two otherwise non-serviceable shock bodies. We will salvage everything that can be reused, but both bodies are now trash.

Two spare shock bodies had their arms removed and will now serve as replacements for the originals. The arms came off quite easily once a grinder with a thin blade cut down to the splined stud. A few taps with a punch and hammer later, the replacement shocks were put on a shelf to await re-assembly.

The down links were trashed but are being used as samples in our search for single headed links. The links in the back are 13.5 inches from the top of the housing to the end of the threads. The ones in the front are an inch shorter. It has been a fruitless search for replacements thus far, but the guys at Malmberg Trucks in Ottawa are on the case.

The next step was to do a bit of sandblasting to clean up the suspension parts. This went fairly well, but was both hot and exhausting work. The temperature approached 30oC and the dark hood for the sandblasting served to heat things up significantly. Probably a cool day for our Aussie friends, but blistering hot for those of us who live in the Great White North.

After sandblasting, the parts were treated with phosphate spray and left to dry. A few minutes later, they were ready for a quick scuffing and then paint. There will be another small sandblasting session in the near future, and a major industrial level session later this month if things work out. I plan to bring in a local company that has the capability to blast all day long. We have a few frames and loads of parts that we want to prepare for reassembly in the fall.

Photos:

1- Shock arm and stud - note the fine splines
2- Post sandblasting and phosphate treatment
3- New paint