Inliners International Forums General Discussion Drive Train Canvas Covered Leafs?

Greetings Inliners . . .

Planning continues on my '49 Fastback resto project.

Spent sometime on a creeper this weekend checking out the underside. Scratching my head on what to do with those canvas covered leaf springs.

What do most people do with them during restoration?

The canvas on mine is intact . . . but they're pretty darn ugly . . . with grease leaking in several spots. The chevy service manual shows a specialized C-clamp with a needle used to pump grease underneath the packing. No idea where to get such a tool -- or if I'd even want one.

Curious to hear what others have done.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

regards,
stock49

If you want to, most spring shops can install little plastic spacers between the leaves at the tips. There are quite a few vehicles that have used them for years, primarily pickup trucks. They help out to keep the metal from squeeking after a few years of weather.

More often than not, from what I've seen and done anyways, is you may want to have a new set of springs built for the car (that also include the spacers). Modern spring steel can be engineered for a much better ride and suspension response to bigger-powered motors than originals. I don't know if that's in your budget, though

In fact, about the only cars I can remember seeing where they did NOT expose the springs was a couple of resto's on early 60's Rolls Royces. They had leather covers, not canvas.

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David
newbie #4153

My '37 Plymouth still has the original sheetmetal covers on the rear springs. I've never bothered to try greasing anything but the shackles and have had no problems with squeaks. I've seen late '30's Chevies with sheetmetal covers also. I have something I think is called Polyride that is a thin plastic the width of the spring that you put between each spring leaf. You can ge it from most streetrod parts suppliers. I have been using this on my '53 Chevy for 10 years now and can't say that I have had any problems with it other than it trying to squirm out at the ends once in a while. Not sure if it really made any difference in the end.
If you are trying to do a "points" type resto, then you should get in contact with the group that does the judging and see what they use for criteria and follow that.

Canvas??

Mine, and every other early Chevy leaf spring I've ever seen was wrapped with sheet metal!

You are correct Ducky. Guess I didn't phrase my question clearly. The exterior wrapping is sheet metal -- but the first layer of packing is documented to be canvas. And my concern is with internal lubrication.

Chapter 4 of my '49 Chevy Shop Manual describes using "lubricating clamp J-595" so that cup grease is "applied in such a way that it is forced between the leaves of the springs and not between the canvas liners and the spring covers."

With the response from gearhead indicating that he never has bothered to lubricate the wrapped springs on his '37 Plymouth . . . leads me to believe that I can just sandblast and paint the exterior and forget about what's up inside.

Thanks to all for sharing experiences.

stock49

Mine are original, and I have never done anything to them, and they work fine. If there is not really anything wrong, I would not create trouble by trying to fix somthing that isnt broken.

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jku72
1940 Chev