Spring packing

[Ian Dunford]

Thank you for your kind words Tony.
The bearded wizard has waved his wand.

[Tony Press]

Thank you for your kind words Tony.
The bearded wizard has waved his wand.

Excellent !

[Nick Turley]

On dismantling my current restoration project (1925 AC tourer) which has had very little done to it in it's lifetime (circa 33k miles). The milage was kept as a log by the original owner (district nurse) as a diary which is still with the car.
I found a thin piece of hickory word between the chassis and spring. 
Of course I cannot say for sure whether it was fitted at the factory, but I would be surprised if not. 
On reassembly I have left it out as I could not see a purpose for it, although it has been treated to a new Dunford spring.
This car had been very badly maintained by the local to the owner garage and despite the relatively low mileage showed wear on springs and pins as a consequence.

Out of interest one of the rear springs had a broken leaf as the shockers were stupidly overtightened (a common mistake) thus loosening the rear chassis brackets. Now I have replaced the rivets, hot riveting (that was exciting) all the brackets to chassis and fitted new rear springs  as well.
The engine which was running fine was on standard bores with original pistons still fitted. However the engine inside was the dirtiest I have ever encountered. So I decided to strip clean and rebuild it, it has been re-bored to +10 thou and the original crank with an 8 thou grind is going back in. As well as crack testing I had it x rayed to check for stresses. Re balancing was also necessary because the machines available in the period were nothing like a accurate as now.
The back axle on stripping showed no wear at all, so it just got new inner lipseals, clean and back together.
The gear box was perfect, just the leaver top needed repair.

It is a great privilege to work on such an unmessed about with car.

[Dennis Nicholas]

Ive never distmantled a car with any. A piece of asbestos jointing would do a similar job to the fibre sheet

Asbestos!!!!!!!! not likely.

[Hedd_Jones]

i'll send you some if you cant find any Dennis

[Dennis Nicholas]

There is somewhere the official statement that the spring packing is there to stop the spring wearing the chassis nosepiece.
Front spring goes on top of spring between spring and chassis.
Rear goes under spring between spring bottom and chassis plate that the spring sits on.  There are different thicknesses, as required, here.

I have a plane piece of packing ready to drill the front spring locating peg hole......so long ago I can't remember where I got it....sorry.

[Dave Mann]

I think the red fibre was intended to reduce the risk of fretting between spring and chassis, I wouldn't know whether it does or not as our cars have it fitted.

[JonE]

BR19, front spring packing is never pictured in the parts lists from early on. It is however noted in 1406c as part number 1A 5042 which cross references to BR19. This is specifically noted in the index cards as HORNBEAM and TAPERED (i.e. wedge). From 278,974, it is vulcanised rubber and PARALLEL. ("Fibre" noted elsewhere in list from Sept 1937) So it may be that wood front spring packing was, as Nick noted, there at the beginning all the way through.. until springs were first removed/serviced.

Nick - was there any evidence of wedge/taper on the wood on this 1925 car?

It is also noted elsewhere that saloons and vans had different rear packing part numbers to tourers. BR63 to BR81. Pictured in 1029a (180,000 chassis) but no obvious difference in height shown. Interesting that this alteration/trim necessary when there are different springs specified between closed and open cars anyway.

In 1936ish (1406c) there is an aluminium packing block for the front spring noted for export.

[Bill Sheehan]

Without looking up Parts Lists, my recollection is that early-on the front spring packing (as suggested, to stop fretting both spring leaf and nosepiece) was red fibre.  It was flat on top for the nosepiece and concave underneath to suit the spring, but not tapered.  It's replacement was that lignum wood (that's tougher than steel?), shaped likewise.  The aluminium blocks Tony or someone referred to were an inch thick and flat top & bottom - were only there on the imported chassis (to Oz, maybe not the fully-imported complete cars for New Zealand) to give greater ground clearance "for Colonial conditions".  When people fitted tapered wedges for a front axle that was lowered, they probabbly forgot they also needed the Ulster/Nippy/Speedy - type radius arms that had the compensating angles cast into them.  The Grasshopper radius arms are another story again.   Hope this helps.   Cheers,  Bill in Oz

[JonE]

With the thicker packing block noted for export, what happens to the centralising/locating peg of the spring? Is there another peg on the top of the packing block, or how would one ensure the spring stays in place?