65 rear spring

[Gary B.]

Re: 65 rear spring

Gary,

I have one of those NOS 10 leaf springs I purchased from GM in 1981. I call it NOS but I installed it on my 63 and it sat in the garage until I decided to restore the original nine leaf and install. The 10 leaf spring never saw the road so it's new to me, and I can also report the ride height is exactly the same as my original 63 spring. The spring liners are not plastic and look like aluminum or some sort of metal.

Tim,

I looked back at the first article I wrote for the Restorer on leaf springs from about 8 or 9 years ago and the spring you purchased as a service replacement part, GM #362153, is the spring used in production for 1976-1977, i.e., 10 leaf, single stage. This suggests that by 1981 it was not possible to buy a "correct" two-stage 9-leaf spring to replace the production 9-leaf spring used from 1964-1974, which was GM #3850839, since I suspect GM did not sell more than one regular spring in service.

Also, I have one question for you. In that old article of mine I was uncertain about the number of liners used with the 362153 spring. With a single-stage 10-leaf spring, you would expect there to be one liner between each leaf, so a total of 9 liners. Are there 9 liners? I can't tell for certain from your photos.

Thanks,

Gary

[Timothy B.]

Re: 65 rear spring

Gary,

I just looked at the spring and there are nine liners as you suggested. I believe you are also correct about the availability of the nine leaf spring as I am sure if that spring was still available in 1981 that's what I would have gotten for my 63.

[Gary B.]

Re: 65 rear spring

Tim,

Thanks for the confirmation on the liners. I bet that NOS spring must be serving as a piece of sculpture in your garage.

I'm sure you know that the regular spring for '63 was different than '64-'74, because the '63 spring was one-stage and the '64-'74 spring was two-stage.

Gary

[Timothy B.]

Re: 65 rear spring

Gary,

Yes, I am aware of the differences in the springs. I am lucky that my 63 springs condition is serviceable so it seems to be working fine. My 67 spring is a combination of the best pieces of two springs and it too has a nice ride height.

The NOS spring will probably make it on someone's car in the future, I wanted to share about the ride height using this new GM spring on my 63. I don't understand why these repro springs can't be arched correctly to provide a good ride height.

I do have another two stage spring I bought in Carlisle years ago that provides a correct ride height. I can post a picture of it if you would like to see it, I have no idea who made the spring.