Front spring question

[Mark Osterman]

I assume that over the years these old front springs naturally sag a little. I wouldn’t mind having the clearance between the front tires and the undersides of the front fenders have a little more room. Can the leaves be reformed at a shop or is it just easier to buy a new front spring?

[CudaMan]

The front fenders can also sag over time, there are period aftermarket braces that pull the fenders together at the top to reduce the sagging.

My Betsy has a fender brace, I bought it at Hershey a few years ago from Dan Killecut.

[Allan]

Mark, it is not difficult to add arch to a single curve spring like a T front spring. It is done cold, with a heavy hammer, across a substantial piece of channel iron as a kind of bridge. I use my swedge block. The correct hammer is like a sledge hammer, but one side is radiused in line with the handle. A ball pein hammer will suffice.
Trace the arch of each leaf you have on cardboard, and use this as a reference to keep your re-arching symmetrical either side of the centre bolt hole. Check progress as you go. You don't want your T standing on tip toes.

Allan from down under.

[John E. Guitar]

You can reset the springs cold. I did mine last year, one leaf at a time, in a broaching press. I sat the leaf between two blocks about 30cm apart and pressed down between them. I repeated this for the full length of the leaf to get the right curve.

I put the spring info from an earlier post in a spreadsheet with metric values for the modern era.

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/41 ... 1411857354

With thanks to Tom Carnegie and Bill Mullins

[D Stroud]

What Allan and John said. Dave

[Mark Nunn]

Thruway Spring in Rochester should be able to re-arch your leaves for you.