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Mis-Alignment of Leaf Spring Centering Pins - How Much is OK?

giles45shop

Red Skull Member
Joined
May 24, 2020
Member Number
1336
Messages
114
Loc
Odessa, FL
My best friend is rebuilding a 74 Dodge Power Wagon that he has had since high school, 40 years ago. He's not very mechanically inclined, so several of us our helping with the process. Intent is to build something that is a nice weekend driver/resto-mod. He is replacing the closed knuckle D44 and upgrading the rear D60 to disc brakes as well as replacing the anemic 360 w/ a mildly built 440 w/ aluminum heads and fuel injection (~ 500 HP), adding a set of slotted aluminum mags and some 37's.

He bought a Chevy D60 front and one of our other friends completely rebuild it, along w/ a new set of Skyjacker leaf springs. Yesterday, we swapped out the front axle. One of the things I noticed was that the leaf springs both were slightly canted inwards such that the outside edge of both springs had ~ 1/8"-3/16" gap between the spring and the spring mounting surface on the axle when the inside edge was touching. I asked him if he had measured the center to center distance for the centering pins for both axles and he said that they were a "smidge" different, but I am pretty sure he didn't measure them and I suspect that the pins on the new axle are not quite as far apart as the original one.

We haven't tightened up the axle U-bolts yet, partially because I need to make a spacer plate for the one side, but wanted to get some feedback on whether this slight cant to the springs is something to be concerned about/fixed, or just tighten everything up and roll with it. I've never messed w/ leaf springs, so this is a new area for me.
 
Id go with no misalignment. IMO center bolts are the biggest pita of leaf springs.
 
Explain the canted inward part ( canted in towards the centerline of rig) how is there a gap on the outer (tire side) @ spring plate?
Do they look like this \ /
Or this / \
How is front to rear pin measurement?
Are the bushes shot?
Are the hangers bent?
 
Dodge and gm have 1/2" difference in the cl.

If it makes you feel better grindout the pinholes.

The taller the springs the less effort to get them to fit.

I wouldnt worry about it at all.
 
Chevy and dodge axles are 1.5" differant if I recall correctly. Worse than that, the long side is the same, and the short side is differant.
If im right about your problem, then the axle isn't centered in the truck, which would bother me just as much.
Many people have run them like this and not had them fail. It's not right though
 
I get 1" difference trying to jam a Ford or Chevy diff into a dodge. I can't pull stock Cummins leafs together enough.

What I'm going to do is extend the front hangers with a lap weld extension and deal with the remainder at the shackle end with some offset. Don't care if the leafs aren't perfectly parallel.
 
spidr said:
Chevy and dodge axles are 1.5" differant if I recall correctly. Worse than that, the long side is the same, and the short side is differant.
If im right about your problem, then the axle isn't centered in the truck, which would bother me just as much.
Many people have run them like this and not had them fail. It's not right though
Click to expand...
You bring up a good point that I didn't really think of w/ regards to the location of the centering pin in relation to the WMS. Will need to get out the plumb bob and tape measure and verify those dimensions to make sure it is centered side to side.

Clb said:
Explain the canted inward part ( canted in towards the centerline of rig) how is there a gap on the outer (tire side) @ spring plate?
Do they look like this \ /
Or this / \
How is front to rear pin measurement?
Are the bushes shot?
Are the hangers bent?
Click to expand...

They look like this \ /. I had my recollection of where the gap was backwards. The gap was at the inside edge and not the outside. I didn't measure front to rear or side to side, so definitely need to verify the axle is square front to rear and centered side to side.

Hangers are in good shape and the bushings are all new.
total newb said:
Dodge and gm have 1/2" difference in the cl.

If it makes you feel better grindout the pinholes.

The taller the springs the less effort to get them to fit.

I wouldnt worry about it at all.
Click to expand...

I think the springs are ~3" lift, it wasn't very hard to get them in place. The springs are just the first part of the effort. The old Dodge and relatively new Chevy axles have different shock mounting locations, steering arms, drag links, etc.; so I expect to have to do some fab work to make the steering functional once we get the axle mounted correctly.
 
OK
Much better...

You should be fine as long as they are square and even when torqued down.
Nothing is perfect
In before
You are gunna kill a bus load of nunns:flipoff2:
 
Thanks! Definitely have some stuff to check. This was kind of a last minute request for me to stop by and help, so was focused on getting the one axle out and the new one back underneath so we could remove the front end loader we were using as a jack :)

Here's an old picture of the truck (circa 1982ish). His dad had somebody install a hydraulic dump bed to make it easier to dump out old oranges and feed to the cows. We cut the front fenders, fabricated a radiator support and added hydraulic cylinders to make the front end tilt as well.
 

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YotaAtieToo said:
Chevy is 31.5" and dodge should be 32.5"

I feel like a few companies make kits to deal with this.
Click to expand...

The kits I have found are for swapping the dodge diff into the Chevy. It's easier because the Chevy hangers are 3.5" wide for a 2.5" spring, and it's as simple as a narrower bushing and a spacer.
 
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