Mid Year Spring Liners

[George C.]

I am about to rebuild an original 1965 rear leaf spring, and am looking for liners.
Does anyone have experience with the ones that Wilcox sells? I know sometimes repro parts come from the same manufacturer, is that the case with the liners?

Thank you,
George

[Peter J.]

Re: Mid Year Spring Liners

George,
I am about to send my original (66) spring off to Eaton to get re-arched and wanted to order the liners and paint but it doesn't look good after checking the archives. Quanta is apparently out of the rear spring paint and the liners from our usual vendors don't seem to be measuring up to the originals very well. I hope somebody with a positive experience answers your post with some suggestions.
Pete

[George C.]

Re: Mid Year Spring Liners

Peter,
Hi, and thanks for your response, I am hoping for some current information on various suppliers. I read the archives, however there isn't very much recent information, lots from a few years ago.
In some older posts there are suggestions that there is probably only one manufacturer of the liners, thus my question.

George

[Jack H.]

Re: Mid Year Spring Liners

You should get roughly the same function and appearance at a MUCH lower cost on spring paint if you just go to your local paint store and look for a rattle can of silver/galvanized...

On the liners, yes there are modest differences between factory originals and off-the-shelf reproductions, but I've not known anyone to take a 'hit' for the repro liners IF they trimmed them properly. Plus, the last time I checked, originals were still available from Mr. Goodwrench, but you'd better be sitting down when the counter parts man quotes you the price!!!

[Wayne M.]

Re: Mid Year Spring Liners

.... the last time I checked, originals were still available from Mr. Goodwrench, but you'd better be sitting down when the counter parts man quotes you the price!!!

Last time I bought some from GM parts (#3794113) was in 2004, and they were about $28 per liner. Good news is that in most cases, you need diminishing lengths as you go up the leaf stack, so you can cut some good inner sections off the longer/lower originals and reuse on the shorter leafs. In the end, you may only need 2 or 3 new liners.

[George C.]

Re: Mid Year Spring Liners

Jack,
Thanks for the tip, I'll look for that paint. I also didn't know you could buy liners from GM. I will give the dealer a call on Monday.

Wayne,
Great idea, I'll go pull the spring apart and see if any of the existing liners can be cut down to work between the shorter leafs.

I am still hoping to hear if anyone has experience with the liners from Wilcox.
Thank you,
George

[Gary B.]

GM liners # 3794113 are GM discontinued

Guys,

The GM liners were discontinued a several (3 or 4?) years ago.

Gary

[Larry M.]

Re: Mid Year Spring Liners

Jack,
Thanks for the tip, I'll look for that paint. I also didn't know you could buy liners from GM. I will give the dealer a call on Monday.

Wayne,
Great idea, I'll go pull the spring apart and see if any of the existing liners can be cut down to work between the shorter leafs.

I am still hoping to hear if anyone has experience with the liners from Wilcox.
Thank you,
George

George:

I just went through this last year about this time. I believe that I posted all this information....and it should be in the archives. But if not:

1. I used a grinder with a purple scotchbright abrasive pad and then a wire brush to clean the old spring leafs and remove the paint. Then I LIGHTLY blasted them with fine sand. Be careful here with the pressure and the sand grit to avoid metal gouging and damage.

2. For the paint/coating I used KRYLON SPRAYON #S00740. It is a 95+% zinc-rich cold galvanizing compound with an epoxie binder. About $7 per can, and I used about 4 cans total (a lot of over-spray). We use this zinc compound in the chemical plants and it is very good. The color is almost perfect. Can be purchased at an industrial supply company or go on-line.

3. I tried everywhere to buy the GM service replacement liners, but could not. I did a nation-wide search using the GM parts search, and found one liner in Pennsylvania and one liner in Louisiana. That was it. I bought both............but in the end, I installed QUANTA spring liners. They seem to look and fit fine.

4. I researched liners from multiple sources, and found that there are at least three (3) manufacturers in the USA. Original liners were 0.056 inch thick. The (two) service replacement GM liners were 0.040 inch thick. The Quanta liners are 0.042 inch thick, and DR REBUILD liners are 0.032 inch thick. Bair's also sells liners, but I did not buy any from them. Maybe I should have?

Due to the differences in liner thickness, the spring attachment bolts to the differential MAY need to be trimmed to avoid problems with the two forward bolts that have blind holes. I had to remove about 1/8 inch from two of my bolts to get the correct fit. Be sure that you DO NOT tighten these four spring attachment bolts until you have the car back on its wheels and the weight of the car on the spring. Others have tried and failed......and broken the rear differential housing case.

Check for my previous post(s) about 12 months ago.

Larry

[Tracy C.]

Re: Mid Year Spring Liners

George,

Everything I've ever from Wilcox was top notch, however I bought my liners from Long Island Corvette Supply. I gave them a couple coats of hand rubbed carnuba wax and a sprinkle of dry graphite lube to slick'em up some prior to assembly.

I bought my paint at LOWE's. It is a zinc rich cold galvanizing compound. Basically the same color and content as the original paint.

tc

[Gary B.]

Mid Year Spring Liners; thickness

4. I researched liners from multiple sources, and found that there are at least three (3) manufacturers in the USA. Original liners were 0.056 inch thick. The (two) service replacement GM liners were 0.040 inch thick. The Quanta liners are 0.042 inch thick, and DR REBUILD liners are 0.032 inch thick. Bair's also sells liners, but I did not buy any from them. Maybe I should have?

Larry,

I did some similar thickness comparisons in August of 2005 and got the following results:

Original GM liner: 0.047" to 0.53"
"New" (circa 2003) GM service replacement: 0.045"
Old (circa 1980's) GM service replacement: 0.048" to 0.050"

From this I concluded that the original GM liners used in production were the thickest, and as the years went on the GM service replacement liner got slightly thinner, but not close to the Dr. Rebuild thickness of 0.032".

Although the service part is GM-discontinued, once every year or two one liner shows up on e-bay. One liner is not a big help.

Gary

[Joe L.]

Re: Mid Year Spring Liners

George,
I am about to send my original (66) spring off to Eaton to get re-arched and wanted to order the liners and paint but it doesn't look good after checking the archives. Quanta is apparently out of the rear spring paint and the liners from our usual vendors don't seem to be measuring up to the originals very well. I hope somebody with a positive experience answers your post with some suggestions.
Pete

Peter-----


I would not have an original spring re-arched. I'd either clean it up and restore it as-is or obtain another spring.

If the leaves are in good shape from the perspective of lack of pitting corrosion, I'd definitely rebuild it as-is. If one or more of the leaves suffer from deep pitting from corrosion (usually on the upper surface), I'd replace the leaf or leaves from a good donor spring.

[George C.]

Re: Mid Year Spring Liners

I may not need new liners after all, the spring may have too much corrosion and pitting to be worth saving.
I have a repro spring in my car now that I took apart, repainted grey and reassembled with liners from various donor originals. The ride height is good so I should probably leave it alone.
I bought this original a couple years ago, and it looked pretty good from the outside. Has an arch of 10 5/8" with no load and from various old archives I figured it was a good candidate for a rebuild.
When I took it apart today I found pretty deep pitting as well as some flaky rust which when scraped away left obvious depressions in the leaves.
Thank you for all the input,
George

[Bill C.]

Re: Mid Year Spring Liners

The original liners are made from rubber and stretch.
The repros are made/extruded from a hard plastic.

These will distort and tear after some normal use and time.

I found an old spring and cleaned and reused the liners, I tried the repros and had the issues.

I think that the old paint had some type of lubricating capablities - maybe the high zinc content in the Iconclad.

Hope this helps some....

[Peter J.]

Re: Mid Year Spring Liners

Bill,
This what I read in the archives and was why I concerned about the repops.
You were not the only one who had those problems and I really don't want to make this a seasonal chore (replacing liners).
I'm afraid my originals are shot but I just thought maybe the repop spring on the car now might have decent liners. I guess I'll find out when I get it off the car to make the swap back to original springs front and back.

[George C.]

Re: Mid Year Spring Liners

Bill,
I am not sure of this but I think I read in the archives that the original liners were of a plastic like material which allows for the individual leafs of the spring to slide as compressed and released.
This is like what I found when I disassembled an original spring today.
The liners in the repro spring are rubber, and cause a binding affect during spring compression.
Others will update if I am off base with this.
Thank you,
George