My 1929 Plymouth Model U

Chet's Old Plymouths

          Current Work

 Front Suspension Reassembly.

I started the reassembly of the front suspension.  Over the past week or so I had removed the gravel shield and steering box and have been cleaning and renewing the front assembly parts.  Both tie rod ends have been cleaned as well as the tie rod shaft.  Removing the protective coating of grime has been a difficult task.  I am saving some parts like the gravel shields for the Hot Tank at our local Napa store.  Also I cleaned as much of the wheel well as needed and painted it with flat black rust-oleum.  With this work completed I started to reassemble the driver's side suspension.

I lightly honed the frame shackle holes to clear them of any burs.  I used a large 'C' clamp to press the Teflon Bushing into place.


Below is a picture of the shackle setup without the locking nuts.  I added washers to keep the shackle ends from scraping against the spring and frame support.

 

I installed the Steering Box, New Leaf Spring, Bumper, reassembled the Drag Link, New Grease fittings and greased everything.  I am very happy with the end result.

I also spent some time on the passenger side spring now that the Driver's side is completed.  The passenger side was in really bad shape.  The top leaf had been broken and was welded.  I can't believe I was ridding around with this spring in this condition.

The passenger side leaf spring had a different shackle setup.   It had a metal bushing with a screw in the center pivot shaft that the shackle ends connected to.  (See Below)  Definitely a much better shackle than the Tryon Shackle. 

I believe the different shackle and welded top leaf happened quite awhile ago.  With all the grime on the leaf spring you couldn't notice that a half leaf was added to facilitate the broken front spring eyelet.