MTFCA Forum

Hi….Are there any in California? ..Tulare swap meet is soon

You have a 1914 T. Shirley you want a rear taper leaf….
yes/no ?…. I have one in south Texas I’d sell

It’s for the Sightseeing Bus…..extended….holds 8 people

Hi Gary,
I made a 11 leaf for my fire truck by cutting 1 5/8" off the ends of some extra spring leaves and placing them in between. I had to get clamps,
U bolts & threw bolt from a trailer supply house. Not original but did the job of holding up a lot of people in the hose bed. You may want to
consider full floating hubs also.
Craig.

It has Atlas wheels

I wonder what the weight ratings are for 8, 9, 10 leaf springs?

Sorry folks, couldnt resist. Spellcheck never ceases to entertain…
I have a 9 leaf rear spring pack that appears to have just had another of the third spring from the bottom snuck in there. The clips are longer and go around 5 of them so it’s hard to tell when where or who did it. The clamps to the crossmember are longer as well. Perhaps you could add one in there and another of the almost flat ones at the top to accomplish the rating you need? Nothing looks worse than a truck that’s higher in the front, to me anyway. Could add pics of the 9 leaf if you like. Good luck, big bus sounds like a fun model T! -Chris, in Boulder

Please post a pic!

Just adding extra leaves is not the entire solution. There are three curves in a long rear spring leaf. As soon as you try to add another, it upsets the stack and they will not necessarily fit together well. Each leaf needs to be worked on so that it properly fits. Adding an extra no 3 leaf means all the ones above need to be re-arched for correct fit.
Front springs are a different matter. You can add to that stack as you wish.

Allan from down under.

Here it is….what a great car!

That is a really great car! I can’t find the magazine with it on the cover, do you know the volume and number? Allan is right though, the stacked up spring does have a gap where they do not fit together correctly. I had forgotten about that actually, but it did close up with the weight of the car on it. The little r.p.u. was sure bouncy with that in there. I figured “ it’s a truck, so I should jack it up, right?”- it only stayed half a day!
Re-Arching the springs above an added one wouldn’t be that time consuming or difficult, but left unchanged, it would result in an unsafe situation where the spring are slapping when un loaded and could shift or break. For a car that beefy, ( and valuable) I’d probably have a new spring pack made from scratch by Eaton. Or at least a new main and then make a stack of ten that fits nice. Sure hope you find something that works, it’s an iconic vehicle to say take least!

Is Eaton a company that builds springs?

September, October 1976 I think…..I can email it to you.

I don’t have a copy…..would like one.

Hit the stacks but I only have May-June and then November-December of ‘76 sorry! Isn’t there a cover with the bus from quite a few years later? Thats what I seem to remember anyway, not seeing an article.
Eaton spring is in Detroit and provide accurate restoration springs. Of course I have seen bad and good reviews of them lately but it must be near impossible to do what they do these days for any amount of money. Try to find a local industrial truck spring shop, they are usually pretty savvy and can handle it easily from measurements, but those are very few and far between anymore. -Chris

Not to crash your party but when i had leaf springs fitted, i took them to a semi-tractor leaf spring repair shop. They loved to adjust them and they didnt charge squat…. Just a thought.

The MTFCA will email the Sep-Oct 1976 issue to you. They emailed it to me and I can’t figure out how to share it.