MTFCA Forum

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?

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.

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.

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

What Allan and John said. Dave

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