Best Way to Restore Leaf Springs

[w30bob]

Howdy Boys,

Ok, so who knows the secret to restoring leaf springs so they don't start rusting a few months after you've painted them. From everything I read it's impossible. The leaves have to rub up against each other to work, and there's no paint or powder coating that can survive that rubbing. Putting layers of hard plastic between the leaves won't work, as the leaves will wear thru that in short order. So is there any way to keep leaf springs looking new once you've rebuilt them?

thanks,
bob

[52 M-42]

Constantly wipe them down with lacquer thinner and repaint them.

[ZGjethro]

Would any grease or something like PB blaster between the leaves help? You might even get smoother suspension travel.

[w30bob]

Yeah, repainting is probably the only answer..........or have them made out of stainless.

If there was a way to continually lubricate between the leaves that would work....but there's no way to do that that's practical.

later,
bob

[superbee70]

Graphite impregnated paint?

http://www.agspecialty.com/EZslide.htm

Or teflon slide plates? These are installed on lots of spring packs and seem to hold up pretty well.

[w30bob]

Teflon slide plates? You now have my undivided attention.
That bears looking into........many thanks!!

bob

[w30bob]

Well, a little digging and I found this forum/posts. Very interesting read. Looks like the answer is available from McMaster!

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/a ... 23160.html

regards,
bob

[rickv100]

Manual states smear with GAA grease and reassemble.

Rick

[jjefferson]

Back in the day when I sailed around the oceans on a tall ship. Read that old school - no winches, showers, tv, phones, internet, and the once day loran fix etc etc. We would paint the our anchors with a mixture of black paint, jap dryer, tar, maybe some gear oil and whatever else we had on hand. Always seemed to work good, the tar made it a thicker, and stickier coating. Smelled good too. Same held true of all the standing wire rigging, every bosun had their own secret recipe.

Jim

[m-11]

Since no one has posted this link I thought this might be of interest. It's more than just suspension http://www.m37rebuild.com/Suspension%20 ... Items.aspx