More AMC Madness

[Eagle]

I was getting bored while recuperating from surgery, so to have something to occupy my time I turned to a small project I've been ignoring for a long time. Along the way, I managed to come up with two pairs of MJ rear springs. Both sets are 3+1, so I guess they're standard springs. 2WD or 4WD? Your guess is as good as mine.

 

The only problem was that three out the four springs had broken leaves. But .. not all the same leaf, so I set out to pull individual leaves from the three springs to make up one good spring to make a pair. I got together one overload leaf, one third leaf, one second leaf, and a main leaf. Spent a bunch of time wire brushing and chipping flaked rust off them, then put on two or three coats on Rustoleum semi-gloss black and reassembled.

 

The first thing I discovered when I laid out my finished creation next to the original spring is that the overload leafs are not symmetrical. Y'all may have been aware of that, but I wasn't. So I loosed the center pin nut, spun the overlad leaf around 180 degrees, and tightened it up again.

 

Just stiing out of a vehicle, the free arch of the two spring packs looks pretty close, so I believe if they were put in a vehicle they would probably ride evely. Then I looked closer, and I discovered that the rebound clips (which are riveted to the third leaves in MJ springs) aren't the same height.

 

On the spring I rebuilt, I replaced the bolts through the rebound clips with new 3/8" bolts in new 1/2" steel sleeves. Even with the new sleeve, the cross bolts leave a gap of a quarter inch or more (easily enough to add a leaf) to the top of the mean leaf.

 

The original spring has zero gap. I have one more third leaf, which has the taller rebound clips, so I now plan to disassemble the original spring and swap the third leaf.

 

The question is -- why the difference?

 

The two springs, side-by-side

 

Detail of one end

 

The difference between the rebound clips