rear springs removal and body floor

[Howard Wright]

but are they round or are they stamped hexagonal? I thought I'd seen the latter...

Hi Jon

Given the likelihood of the body being placed directly over an hexagonal hole such that the bolt can be driven up through it, my money is on the original hole in the floor pan being round and a bit oversized.

Obviously the hole in the chassis must be hexagonal to ensure the nut can be undone!

Sparky..

Lifting the body sufficiently to remove a U bolt is achievable. I had to do this on my RK as the previous owner had fabricated his own U bolts which looked decidedly unsafe. I also had to drill holes in the floor pan   which had been patch repaired to cover the original holes.

Cheers

Howard

[sparkeysprite]

I think I'll start with a round hole to get the through bolt out. If that works OK I'll probably try and lift the body a little to get the U Bolts out, but they don't look too bad so if they have to stay in place it shouldn't be an issue. I'll try and take a few photos as I do it which may help others in future,

Thanks
Steve.

[Tony Press]

but are they round or are they stamped hexagonal? I thought I'd seen the latter...

From memory the bolt heads are hexagonal and fit a hexagonal hole in the chassis. As noted the original floor pan has a round hole above the bolt.

[sparkeysprite]

I finally got around to changing my springs today - not nearly as bad a job as I had feared.  When I bought this car it had been off the road for some time and the rear axle had been out and was only loosely attached.  I assume the reason for this had been to change the rear springs as everything came apart really easily and the springs slid out without any effort.  The previous owner stopped the job due to ill health so I assume when they eventually decided to sell the car, they didn't bother with the expense of new springs and just put the old ones back.

Unfortunately the part of the floor above the main bolt was the part with a strengthener that supports the seat so cutting the holes wasn't as easy as I'd hoped:

   

Tony is correct, the chassis has a recess to hold the bolt head.

The car is back on it's wheels now and sitting a bit higher as hoped.  As I wasn't able to make nice neat round holes I'm going to get my MIG out and weld a piece of steel back into the floor and the strengthener bit.  But I'll leave that until next weekend..

Steve.

[Howard Wright]

Hi Steve

It may be worth looking at the body mounting points on the chassis.  Although on my RK the spring bolt holes were close to the stiffening rib they weren’t that close.  I doubt the boat tail floor pan rib would have originally covered the bolt hole.  So it may be that the body is not correctly positioned on the chassis.  I don’t know the floor pan mounting points on the boat tail, perhaps others could advise?

Cheers

Howard

[Ian Williams]

I am sorry Steve I know this may sound harsh, but under the circumstances I feel your approach was ill advised and you would have been better off lifting the body, which is not actually that difficult. The car has survived unscathed 90 years and damage you have inflicted will now be very hard to repair properly will always be there. This should be a lesson to all that cutting corners is not always a sensible approach, far better to slow down and consider the options and outcomes.

[sparkeysprite]

Howard, You may be right, however I suspect in fact the floor may not be original and the rib may have been replaced slightly further forward than originally.

Ian, I don't disagree in principle but I doubt the current floors were there 90 years ago. I suspect they were replaced some time ago and the strengthening rib was replaced in a slightly wrong position.
I'm pretty good with a MIG, so I'm confident I could put it back to look exactly as it was before I cut it, however I think I'll make a box up to fit around the bolt hole so that it could be removed again if needed.

Cheers,
Steve

[Bob Culver]

I have never dismantled a rear spring. A colleague recently mentioned that there is some complexity with the rivet and not straightforward. Can anyone elaborate please?
(I suppose usual precautions about the spring exploding needs be observed. A neighbour knocked himself unconscious with a spring)
I have heard oldies recount how springs were restored simply by hammering cold on a semi hard surface.....