[Healeys] Leaf Spring Assembly Finished

[Michael MacLean]

Well, the driver's side finished  tonight anyway.  Just wanted to let the list know I assembled the axle to the leaf spring tonight.  Many thanks for all the suggestions from the list on how to do this.  I ended up doing it the way restorer Lynn Martin told me. (www.4everhealeys.com)  Curt Arndt of the San Diego club got me in touch with Lynn.  In an email Lynn explained how he does it.  Put a floor jack under the leaf spring and wrap a chain under the floor jack and around the axle housing inside of the u-bolt location.  I used a tie down strap instead of a chain.  Worked just fine.  You then set a bottle jack on top of the floor jack and under the u-bolt plate and lift the spring into place with the bottle jack.  Easy peezy.  Well, not that easy.  Took a little fiddling to get everything to line up so the packing piece and the u-bolt plate hole lined up with the pin on the bottom of the leaf spring.  At the same time the hole in the welded box section of the axle had to line up with the pin on the top of the leaf spring.  I had to persuade the axle housing to move a little towards the passenger side to get the top pin in the hole.  The panhard bar bushings had to be compressed a little to get everything in place.  I used another tie down strap wrapped around the frame to pull it in the right direction.  The pumpkin was held up into place with another floor jack.  Tomorrow the other side, then on to the front suspension which is all rebuilt.  It just needs to be bolted in.  Can't exactly see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, but it's moving along. I have included a picture to help illustrate what Lynn was talking about.  The second picture is a little fuzzy, but shows everything connected.Mike MacLean
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