I ran across a TV program where they were "restoring" a 62 Corvette with the body on. They redid the wheel bearings, cut off non-original chassis brackets, adjusted the steering box, and sprayed everything with Eastwood's Chassis Black. Then they did an interesting thing. They wire brushed and painted the leaf springs (not the interesting part yet). Then they smeared the leaf springs with grease, and wraped them in duct tape. Drive it like that (sez the TV folk) and it'll force the grease in between the springs. Remove a couple weeks later. Has anyone ever heard of this or tried it?
[ QUOTE ] but you gotta get everything real clean first [/ QUOTE ] why, to keep the smeared grease happy lol? Is this to prevent squeaks or something? Sounds like it'd probably work, messy though
[ QUOTE ] Is this to prevent squeaks or something? Sounds like it'd probably work, messy though [/ QUOTE ] It's to lubricate the springs so that they work the way they should. Ideally, you'd take the springs off, clean and repaint each leaf, and then put polyslide material between each leaf when you reassemble them into a unit again. Being lazy, I found the grease-and-duct-tape solution to be pretty appealing.
I watched that program and my thoughts differed somewhat with their practices. They claimed the frame was really solid with just this little hole to be repaired...Right. There was a 4 inch hole all the way through the rear of the frame! They cut out the cancerous edges and welded in a patch. I'd have reomved the body to blast the frame in prep for a good inspection and repair/repaint. Those guys used spray cans to paint the frame bottom and sides.....no way they could even see the top of the frame. They replaced the front wheel bearings, driving the new races in with a 3 lb sledge....steel to steel contact with new races is a no-no..you always use a brass drift to knock in new races...plus, it would have been a perfect time to up-grade to roller bearings but they used to stone-age ball bearings. Sam Memollo is prolly sputtering in his cheerios! It coulda been done better and the duct-tape and grease for a classic 'vette spring re-do is a perfect example of their show.....I give it a D................sorry.
[ QUOTE ] Sam Memollo is prolly sputtering in his cheerios! [/ QUOTE ] LOL. Memollo is one of the laziest dudes on TV. He is always talking about how he wants to take a break and have the other guy do the difficult stuff.
[ QUOTE ] I watched that program and my thoughts differed somewhat with their practices. They claimed the frame was really solid with just this little hole to be repaired...Right. There was a 4 inch hole all the way through the rear of the frame! They cut out the cancerous edges and welded in a patch. I'd have reomved the body to blast the frame in prep for a good inspection and repair/repaint. Those guys used spray cans to paint the frame bottom and sides.....no way they could even see the top of the frame. They replaced the front wheel bearings, driving the new races in with a 3 lb sledge.... [/ QUOTE ] The frame repair was definitely shady. I noticed that when he was driving one of the races in, he'd hit it on one side, and the other side would jump up. Then he'd hit the high side, and the oppoiste side would pop up again. He could have been chasing that race around in a circle for hours. I bet he's thankful for the power of editing. So... Aren't gaiters more for keeping grime out than, say, keeping grease in?
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