Thread: Patch up for leaf spring eyes

These are the 2" x 3/8" leaf springs out of the horse drawn milk cart that serviced Laidley until the 1950s, its undergoing a tidy up at the Laidley Pioneer Village. I've been asked to make the spring eyes round again, bearing in mind that the cart will only be doing parade duty once or twice a year.
New 7/16" pins are needed of course but that's the easy part.

One fix that comes to mind is to properly locate a waxed 7/16"+ pin in the eye and back fill with epoxy. Does anyone have tips on doing this, type of epoxy to use etc?



A quick google says that Samuel Cocker & Son of Sheffield ceased trading in the mid 1850s, I can't see if there is a link to John Robert Cocker.

I'd be inclined to fill the eye with Babbitt or something similar, and then drill for the pin.
I guess epoxy is not that different, but I am not sure of the compression strength. Maybe a metal filled epoxy?
(of course the 'proper' repair
would be to have a friendly blacksmith open the eye, upset the metal to thicken it up and re-routed, or perhaps weld a complete new eye on.)

-russ

I straight away thought this would be a good job for babbit as well. It would be a dead easy task.

Dean

Bob these are much like the springs used on pre 80 bus side bin doors. If they became badly worn as said above a sleave would be shop made to take up the slack.. You might find it worth wild to get the blacksmith to also re tension some new life into the springs if he things they can handle it.

On my tandem box trailer that is 22 years old the standard garden variety springs have stated to open up in the eyes. The standard nylon bushes are quite sloppy in the eye. What I have done to get around this is to use Neoprene bushes. I found that I was having to change the hard nylon bushes every year for rego.

I can't buy off the shelf bushes that will fit so I have been buying bushes that should be used in a Suzuki 4 X 4 which has the right pin sized hole. I mount it in the Wood Lathe to reduce the outer diameter. Yes Wood Lathe because the Metal Lathe tooling lets the spongy material "flow" around the cutting tool and not digging in to cut. I use a sharp 16 mm bowl gouge to do the job. The material is not easy to work with but persistence pays off.

I have found that these bushes last a lot longer that the hard nylon ones! Many times when I was replacing them they would come out of the spring eye in pieces.

The Neoprene Bushes may not be the answer to your problem Bob but who knows?

Babbitt is an option, but filling in the eye holes with GP bronze brazing rod and re-drilling will give much greater strength, and also prevent the spring ends opening any more.

You will have to clean/grind and flux the eye holes to do this. Lay the spring one side down in sand to keep the bronze in place when adding. I would not quench the job, let the ends air cool.

The result will be pretty tough.

Do you have a ball end milling cutter?
I have repaired flogged out frames on old machines by machining a piece of round to approximate diameter and then cut it length ways to fill the wear then machine a round slot with the mill .

This enables the once round eye to be filled back to very close to original .

Normal bushes can then be pressed in .
I just tig the ends to stop the filler from moving.
Dress it to get a close match to original width apply some paint and its practically invisible and strong.

Michael

Thanks for the thoughts. After a bit more research I'm going to sandblast the spring eyes and fill them with this Loctite product. Its a drillable 2 part steel filled epoxy putty, hopefully a standard HSS drill will do the job. Does anyone have experience with machining or drilling epoxies?

https://tds.us.henkel.com/NA/UT/HNAUTTDS.nsf/web/9E727E2832461E53882571870000D986/$File/EA%203471%20NA-EN.pdf

Depending on the grade, it could be a bit abrasive on bits so spares or a sharpening method at hand could be useful. Usually I've found when drilling epoxy compounds that the removed material is dusty - so a mask perhaps and/ or a vacuum cleaner to control the dust. I don't think the dust from epoxies is good for you (the MSDS should say that)

Michael

The local bearing shop got the Loctite 3471 steel filled epoxy putty in for me, not cheap at $110 for a 1 pound (454gm) kit, but most of these high end epoxies do seem to be expensive. It took 25 to 35gm to fill each eye, so $6 to $8 per eye material cost. Drilling milling and chamfering didn't present any problems.

This is a photo of one of the repaired eyes, its not super tidy but it will be more then adequate for the required duty.
IMG_0322.jpg

Would be fantastic if you are able to provide some photos which show how it is wearing in a few months, or a few outings.

-russ

Originally Posted by russ57

Would be fantastic if you are able to provide some photos which show how it is wearing in a few months, or a few outings.

-russ

Darn missed seeing the cart these are for last week on a visit to the museum.