Follow Up on My ‘51 Pickup Restoration

By Joe Dispensa

As you know, progress takes time.  I felt that I couldn’t wait to tell you what I have learned about leaf springs.  It really isn’t very difficult to disassemble leaf springs if you have a gas wrench and some basic hand tools.  The first time you replace a bushing it is an exciting experience.  Frank Madrigali suggested driving a heated bushing out with an old socket, but I felt using a bushing remover tool would work great once I knew how to use it.  Frank had the better idea.

Fellow NIRG V-8 members John Slobodnik and I are working on disassembling the spring leafs, degreasing, sandblasting, and replacing bushings, spraying them with a rust inhibiter primer and then chassis black paint.  Before reassembling the springs, the leafs were greased with a layer of red grease.  John and I thought we planned for everything.  John started to heat up the metal around the leaf spring bushing to make the bushing come out much easier.

Meanwhile, I was burying my shiny new bushings in the snow to make them shrink in size so that we could press them in easier.  Being as forgetful as I am, I wanted to make sure that I could find the bushings, so I put a stick right were I buried them.  Returning to get my cold bushings, I dug down into the snow about a foot and a half in diameter and could not find one of the bushings.  Finally, I did find the bushing about six feet from were I buried it.  The moral of the story is, if you have squirrels that will eat out of your hand and steal the grandkids plastic Easter eggs and eat the candy inside, don’t bury your bushing while the squirrels are watching.  We had a good laugh.

We found two broken leaf springs and will have to disassemble another spring from one of my parts trucks.  I would like to thank Lloyd Duzell for his help.  In our situation, he guided us to put a red waterproof grease between the leaf springs and not Teflon tape.  I want to thank John Judge for his help trying to find the specs for my USAF  P/U truck.  We are not there yet, but we are getting close.  Joe Kozmic dropped in looking for John Slobodnik.  He had a lead for a great buy on a 1949 Mercury.  Good luck John.  Don Drews is back helping John and me.  I can’t tell you how much fun it is sharing this experience with the V-8 brothers.  Their knowledge is a great help for a first-timer like me.