16-09-2022, 01:09 PM
In an attempt to reduce the wandering steering of my ARR Ruby which behaved very alarmingly on the way to and from the Centenary event at Moreton, I decided to follow the practice of removing one of the front spring shackles and locking it off with a triangular plate. There are a number of articles about this, each with a different variation of the modification. Ian Williams describes one method on this Forum, Terry Griffin (Midland A7 Club) describes his method on the website and (note - no use of Oxford comma made here) another method is described by 'Spanner' on the Hereford A7 Club website.
'Spanners' version sandwiches the leaf spring eye and axle beam with 2 plates, whereas the other two use a single plate, either in front or behind the axle beam. I have decided to use a single plate on the front which will require a spacer to sit in the profiled recess of the axle beam where the upper radius arm mounting is positioned - the anchor.
In none of the descriptions of the modifications does it take you through the process of dismantling and fitting, probably assuming that if you got this far you know what you are doing. In my case, I thought I'd got the weight of the body off the front axle through supporting the chassis further back, so I was very alarmed when the front shackle was finally removed and the spring sprang down under tension!
So here are my questions:
Firstly, using a flat iron jemmy I can lever the spring upwards, hopefully enough to line up the bolts and plate and fix the darn thing in place, but will this do any damage to the leaf spring or axle beam?
Secondly, is there something I am overlooking that I need to do?
Sensible advice will be much appreciated.
The picture below is 'Spanner's' sandwhich version.
Shackle plate 1.png (Size: 748.56 KB / Downloads: 624)
'Spanners' version sandwiches the leaf spring eye and axle beam with 2 plates, whereas the other two use a single plate, either in front or behind the axle beam. I have decided to use a single plate on the front which will require a spacer to sit in the profiled recess of the axle beam where the upper radius arm mounting is positioned - the anchor.
In none of the descriptions of the modifications does it take you through the process of dismantling and fitting, probably assuming that if you got this far you know what you are doing. In my case, I thought I'd got the weight of the body off the front axle through supporting the chassis further back, so I was very alarmed when the front shackle was finally removed and the spring sprang down under tension!
So here are my questions:
Firstly, using a flat iron jemmy I can lever the spring upwards, hopefully enough to line up the bolts and plate and fix the darn thing in place, but will this do any damage to the leaf spring or axle beam?
Secondly, is there something I am overlooking that I need to do?
Sensible advice will be much appreciated.
The picture below is 'Spanner's' sandwhich version.
Shackle plate 1.png (Size: 748.56 KB / Downloads: 624)