Leaf Spring Help ASAP !!!!

[SamR]

Friday night I was filling up an empty tank with E10 and on the way out of the station found that I had lost two leafs off of one of my leaf springs. Barely made it back in the driveway since the wheel was grinding against the inside of the wheel well. Here is the kicker, I just replaced these springs last season. What I did back then was call the marina (3A Marine), give them the bolt to bolt measurement, spring configuration and leaf count. In speaking with the same tech (who I trust completely) he has never seen anything like this before. We are now thinking of putting in a heavier set of springs just to be safe. Any thoughts on this or my situation in general? I am getting way too good at getting my rig on blocks

 

[Megabyte]

Ouch! :shock:
Those springs are toast!

Really only 2 options at this point...
1. Replace the springs and hardware with something a bit beefier
2. Replace the axles with torsion units.

Obviously, option #1 is the cheaper of the two.

 

[jeffnick]

I simply can't imagine a one year old spring doing that under any circumstances...unless they were questionable to begin with. Reminds me of a set of titanium drill bits I bought on Ebay. I put one in the lathe to drill a hole in a piece of brass dowell. It got to squeaking and complaining so I shut off the motor - the bit was wedged in the brass. I backed it out by hand, and as I did, the drill bit flutes actually unwound while the bit itself maintained it's integrity.


Bottom line: They looked like drill bits, but they really weren't. Seems the same holds true for your trailer springs.

 

[jeffg]

If you need a second opinion for any reason, Drinkwater trailers in Pembroke is very good--I ahd them do some work on my old Caulkins for my 18 and was very happy, including replacing the leaf springs...

 

[SamR]

Thanks guys but I'm all set now. Got a new set at cost. The other old spring looked fine but I wanted to be safe. For the record, the best way that I've found to get off rusty nuts is to slowly sp[in on and back off a new one with WD40. Wears right through.