EZ Trad Style Spring Spreader

[C9]

EZ Trad Style Spring Spreader

Here’s a little project that’s easy to make with a minimum of tools. Nothing fancy and it goes together pretty quick. Nice part is, it works quite well despite its lack of brawn.

Feel free to substitute on size and tubing. I used what I had on hand, but if I built another one I’d probably step up a size and use round tubing, but the square tubing works as well as the round stuff so no big deal.


This first pic shows the components required.
A 29" length of 3/4" x .067 wall square tubing. (Cut length to what you want, but 29" worked well on my stock 36 Ford front axle.
A 36" length of 5/8-11 (NC) all-thread. (Mine cut to 34 3/4")
A 5/8" flat washer.
Two 5/8-11 nuts.
Two 3" long pieces of 2" wide 3/16" hot rolled steel.

Disregard the coupling nut shown, a regular nut works better than the coupling nut because the welding required will put a very slight tweak in the all-thread which can bind up the long coupling nut. Regular nuts spin down the all-thread with no problems.
Make sure to protect the all-thread from weld spatter during the welding process.

[C9]

Shown here are the two pieces of steel.
Note the rolled over shape ground onto one end.
This fits into the sorta V shape between spring eye and leaf.

[C9]

Spring spreader in place and ready to go.

[C9]

With a little pressure on, but this photo to show how well the spreader ends remain on the spring.

[C9]

This last photo showing the spreader in its completed form.
The nut on the left side is to keep the whole thing together as well as allow it to be hung on a pegboard via the 1/4" hole drilled in the right side steel plate. It’s not needed during use.

The welds where the plate was welded to the all-thread are crummy to say the least, but they have good penetration and shouldn’t break. Contamination from the cad plating didn’t help a whole lot either.

Regardless, for a light duty tool it worked well.
Just about anybody ought to be able to knock one of these out.
Lack of a welder shouldn’t stop you either. Most of us know someone who owns a welder and could weld them for you.
Use clean metal, have it ready to go - meaning clamped or have the clamping devices on hand - so all the welder has to do is fire up the trusty welder and simply weld.
I’m like a lot of guys and don’t mind helping, but when I gotta fabricate the whole damn thing.... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[AHotRod]

C9,
Excellant Post!

Spring speaders should be in every Hot Rod chassis shop, Pro or Home.
They make building a car so much easier.

Glenn

[burger]

EXCELLENT!

[Paul]

thanks!

Paul

[Killer]

now make one that'll do a reverse eye spring!

Good stuff Jay.

[fab32]

Thanks for posting that. I built one of those about 25 years ago and have spread at least 50 springs with it. Sure is a handy addition for anyone building or servicing cars like we build. I've loaned it out and lost track of it sometimes for a couple of years at a time only to find it hanging in someones garage that didn't borrow it. Funny thing is that every time I need it I can always hunt it down.

Frank

[fab32]

Forgot to mention that I made a couple of adapters to do reverse eye springs. I used a piece of bar stock 1/2 X 1 and cut it into 4 pcs. long enough to overlap the spring width by enough to drill 1/2" holes in the ends. Put one on the eye side of the spring right up against the eye, and the other on the opposite side and bolt them together.
Take the spreader and place the ends into the crotch made by the spring and the 1/2 X 1 on the inside of the arch of the spring. Expand the spreader and VOILA, you can spread a reversed eye spring.

Frank

[C9]

[ QUOTE ]
now make one that'll do a reverse eye spring!


[/ QUOTE ]

I wuz gonna say, a friend who owns a killer private machine shop made one and it's some piece of engineering.

I'll try to get over there tomorrow and take some pics of it.

That said, fab32's rather elegant and quite brilliant solution strikes me as the way to go.

Nothing like making your own spring crotch to push against . . . did I say that right? http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

[av8]

Great idea, Frank! I'm going to make up a set and have them on hand for the next time a reversed-eye spring needs spreading at Tardel's -- a task that seems to occur at least a couple of times a month.

[roadstar]

[/ QUOTE ]

I wuz gonna say, a friend who owns a killer private machine shop made one and it's some piece of engineering.


[/ QUOTE ]

We call that guy Frank around here http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[AHotRod]

I hope we don't loose this in the move tonight http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

[Ryan]

great post.. it is safe.

[AHotRod]

Thanks Ryan...if ya need any parts.. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Tman]

Getting ready to build one this morning. Everyone else here could quit posting and I could live on C9 tech. Why isnt this in the ToM?

[The37Kid]

now make one that'll do a reverse eye spring!

Good stuff Jay.


Just attach a set of used spring shackles to the leaf (not through the eye)and use this type spreader to do the job.

[wideglide74]

Great post. A friend bought a set of A springs and they came with this spreader. We used it when we disassembled my 36 diff, guess we should have broken the spring down to the mainleaf, but we had a good laugh and where thankful nobody got hurt... OOPS...

[Tman]

Damn! that looks scary! I just built my own this morning. Looks a lot like C9's version with a flating sleeved and and a threaded end. Total time building it was an hour?

[Rocknrod]

Having never worked on a straight axle car... I'm guessing a spring spreader is for installing the leaf on the front? Spread it out to get the bolts in to the mounts?

[Tman]

Having never worked on a straight axle car... I'm guessing a spring spreader is for installing the leaf on the front? Spread it out to get the bolts in to the mounts?

Yes, rear as well.

[C9]

Having never worked on a straight axle car... I'm guessing a spring spreader is for installing the leaf on the front? Spread it out to get the bolts in to the mounts?

Couple of ways to do this.
If you're working with a new aftermarket spring, dis-assemble the spring.
(Use two C-Clamps - G-Clamps in Oz), pull the spring center bolt and release C-Clamp pressure.

Once you've got the main leaf hooked up - easily done by hand in almost all cases - re-assemble using the C-Clamps etc.

This works well if you're working alone - which describes 99.9% of the work I do.
Although the 99.9% bit's gonna improve since my pal moved to Sunny Arizona about a month after I did.

If you've been following the off and on comments about building his shop, it's pretty much done and he has an A chassis with Vette rear in for installation of a front end - solid axle of course - and 29 sedan body.

A couple of days back I was up there and we got the axle/spring combo hung from the frame.
He did have a new aftermarket front spring, but didn't want to dis-assemble it.
(What we did may also be required on a main leaf only install if you're working alone and the eyes don't quite reach.)

We set the bare axle up in a padded (big) vise with the axle correctly oriented as far as the right side up bit goes.
(I have a couple of different style axle holder-upper gadgets I'll try to post pics of later.)

The left side spring shackle was installed on the perch and connected to the axle.
A 2 x 4 about 24" long (shorter ones work fine) was placed between the right side spring eye and axle.
A 6" C-Clamp was used to compress the spring against the 2 x 4.

Once the spring was compressed to the correct point the spring shackle was installed and bolted up.

Don't force things.
You can do this bit by yourself if you're careful and pay attention.
With the C-Clamp pulling the flat spring and flat 2 x 4 together things stay aligned quite well.

The only big caution here is to make sure you are correctly aligned before installing the spring shackle.
It's easy to get the spring shackle spread out in a wide V and then the outer plate won't go on.
Do it right, the shackle slips in, the outer plate slides on and the nuts can be spun down with no damage to the shackle pins.
You'll thank yourself later when - and if - you take the spring shackle arrangement apart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Off on a tangent here . . . sometimes I have to laugh at the two of us - my pal and me - cuz we view some things with different eyes.
The different eyes in this case cuz he's a welder and I'm an amateur machinist.

I saw that the A frame had an overly elongated spring center bolt hole in the front crossmember.
And offered to machine up a bushing he could weld in for a repair.

He looks at me and says, "why don't I just MIG the hole shut and drill a new hole?"

Easy way out . . . no doubt about that and when I went back, he'd welded up the hole, drilled it to fit the center bolt head and finished off the top nicely.
You couldn't tell the hole was ever anything but perfect.
Inside the crossmember you could feel that the welds were the proper thickness and there were no goobers hanging down.

Course, sometimes a machined piece is all you can use, but a thinking guy who can weld can avoid a lot of that....:D

[OLLIN]

damn, that is a good idea!