Reconditioning front spring

[Dmcbrass]

I'm at the point now with the rebuild of my front suspension, on my 70 GT, to dealing with the spring. I have two situations I would like your thoughts on.
1. How have you guys dealt with spring corrosion? My first thought was to sandblast the spring and paint it black. But I'm concerned with getting blasting compound and or paint in between the leaves.
2. I purchased new spring eye bushings from OGTS but the rubber piece that seperates the three leaves is also deteriorated and I can't find a source for new ones. Any ideas?

[markandson]

I agree about not wanting to get blast media between the springs. Also sand blasting might even change the temper of the spring, depending on the pressure and media used. If it is "that" rusty, you might want to condsider replacing it with a new spring from OGTS. Once you are that far into the suspension is makes sense to go all out and fix it right. Blast EVERYTHING, use good quality paints and replace all the bushings and upper and lower ball joints, or at very least the ball joint rubber protective boots. All this depends on how much $ you want to spend. Just my opinion.

[Dmcbrass]

I'm replacing lower ball joints, control arm bushings with inner sleeves, lower control arm bumpers and spring eye bushings. Also blasting and painting control arms and steering knuckle. I really would like to stay with the original front spring. (cost and I like the original look and handling)

[jeff denton]

My preference would be to use the OGTS spring. It won't rust. It sounds like it is easier to work on. I wish I could use one in my car.
I have to do a lot of playing with my front spring, in my application. Whenever I mess with it, I follow simple spring rules and be sure the ends are chamfered nice so they don't gouge each other, and put grease between them. In a street car situation some teflon spacers replacing the stock rubber ones would be trick.
Sandblasting an assembled spring pack is a no no. It makes the springs gall together when they should be sliding . On a big truck it will actually cause the main leaf to break at the spring eye because its helpers are not cooperating. I could see this happening easily on a GT going into a turn real hard, it is easy to max out that wimpy stock spring pack.

[namba209]

What I did on Willit?'s front spring may be of some assistance here, maybe, and I'd like your comments too. First off the whole front suspension was vapor blasted, by me, then everything, minus the spring, was sand blasted. After using extreme care the residual medium was cleaned off. I injected some "NEO" grease between the spring leafs, it's the same stuff you get with the poly bushings from OGTS. then everything was treated with "Metal Ready" and then painted with POR-15 gloss black. Now, knowing how sticky the poly grease is, whatcha think about dirt and road grime getting in between the leafs and binding things up?

[soybean]

On mine, I just took a wire brush in a sander and cleaned it up, replaced everything and did what Ron did with POR-15s "Metal Ready" and then painted with POR-15s, Chassis black. I was lucky,mine still had the rubber between the leaves at the end of them.Here is the thread, starts at post 40. http://www.opelgt.com/forums/showthr...?t=3762&page=3
HTH, Jarrell

[jeff denton]

Ron's comment about road grime entering the spring rang a bell, I looked up "spring maintenance" in a book called Pony Stock/Mini Stock Racing Technology by Steve Smith. Quoting, "after proper preparation, the springs should be assembled and then wrapped in tape to prevent dirt and rust from gathering between the leaves. Any interleaf friction will act just like a friction shock absorber and artificially increase the leaf spring rate."
Okay, so he is saying that clean and protected springs will keep the spring rate you have set up from unsuspectingly getting stiffer. Now, in a street GT a little stiffer spring rate is a GOOD thing! So, maybe it is best to just not worry about it? The worse they look and the dirtier they are the better?
If your front springs feel mushy, go run on the beach with the dune buggies and it will get better.

[Dmcbrass]

I guess I could replace the stock spring with the intermediate spring. Besides the cost I have three other concerns.
1. The belly pan is already fairly low to the ground. Lowering it another inch will only make the possibility of damage more likely.
2. I understand that the intermediate spring will change the camber by about 1 degree. There is no way to compensate for that since rotating the upper ball joint will move it 2 degrees.
3. I seem to remember reading a post that said that lowering the suspension put more wear and tear on the control arm bushings.
Anyone have any experience with the intermediate spring that would be able to comment on these concerns?

[jeff denton]

Rotating the upper ball joint is really not the only adjustment. The upper control arm can be modified for finer adjustment, and much more or much less camber. I simply elongate the big hole and make the bolt holes into slots. Using grade 8 fine thread bolts and washers, I get my camber adjusted and then put a couple spot welds on the washers so they cant slip on the control arm. It has held up just fine, even with tire contact with competitors, once so violent it bent the upper arm but the ball joint didn't move... This happened in a heat race, went on to place second. It was bent so bad the toe out was just over an inch. I had no spare, much less time to deal with it, so I set the toe back to 1/8" out and drove it like that in the Main. That was my third place finish!! Sometimes a bent car is a good car, Mr. Earnhardt used to say.
Rally Bob has a neat looking way of doing practically the same thing, there is a picture of it somewhere here, it came up recently. It was another thread about springs, shackles, etc. I think it popped up when I was trying to figure out how to keep the spring leaves from sliding away from my strange but necessary adjustment.
As far as your issue with the spring causing binding of the lower control arm bushings, well, that is what the engineers designed to happen. Looks dumb to me, that is why I am a huge fan of the whole "Legere Shackle" fad.
Concern over lowering your car, well aren't they supposed to be lower? Whatever, as my kids say, but to eliminate the lowering effect why couldn't you put a 1" spacer between the spring and the crossmember, I don't know why that wouldn't work.
Oh, how I wish our rules would allow the composite spring. I'd like to play with one.