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Most decent size cities have leaf spring place and they cater 99% for heavy trucks. Much like axle shops, electric motor rebuilders, actual radiator shops that recore/tank radiators, these services have become 100% obsolete for modern cars. What once would have been been 5-6 axle/diff/friction (for example) shops in a city of 300K people it is down to 3 for the entire Metro Chicago area including NWI...but they still exist and they are still "way more reasonable than I would have expected" because much the equipment, tooling, jigs have been in service since the 1950's or before.
In the alternate universe where the Robant exists, there is presumably a hilariously-badly-made English car called the Reliant Trabin. And that universe's Robert Dunn has both of them.
In the landrover leaf spring world you are always advised to leave all bolts loose until the weight of the vehicle is on its wheels. This will allow everything to sit correctly. Them you tighten it up.
I feel like this would be standard for most vehicles. I haven't done leaf springs on anything, but when I did front control arms, that was the instruction. Don't torque them to spec until the suspension is under load.
@@RyanKlapperich that applies to pretty much any part that has rubber bushings, they need to be settled in the load bearing position before being tightened up or they will have permanent tension in them leading to early failure or weird handling.
That's about what it says in the Haynes book for the Robin too, the difference is you can get under a Land Rover to do it, to tighten everything with a Robin on the ground you need to be built like an eight year old, or own a modified 4 post lift with an extra wheel platform up the centre.
Spring shops are no joke. I need some front leafs for a 95 F250, as one side had flattened. Rock auto was $300 each for Chinese ones. Went to the local shop and they quoted me $250 for a pair. They called me an hour after I dropped them off and ask if I just wanted to re arch the existing ones as they looked good. Had no idea that was a thing. They temper the springs, bend them back, then temper them again. Then pressed in new bushings, and painted them. Total cost? $50. 50 bucks??? I asked him if he was sure, and he literally said it took him 15 minutes, plus 10 minutes from his helper to paint them. Definitely not 2022 pricing.
robert, i heard you really meant it when you said "thanks for watching", and i just wanted to remind you that you are doing great, and your comunity will always be there for you if you need.
I absolutely LOVE these old school parts shops When we were rebuilding the engine on my old Mazdaspeed3, my dad found a local head exchange place. Literally just 3 old school machinists in a shop thats had the mortgage paid off for 20 years. Brought in the bad head, walked out with a shiny remanufactured one. 1/2 the price of online stores, 1/3rd the price of a new one (with an employee discount), only needed 3 days notice so they could confirm they had the right one on hand
Wonderfully eclectic, ingenious and entertaining. Bravo Sir and thank you for all your hard work in preparing videos for your excellent channel. Our first family car was a 1950s Reliant; devastatingly simple to take apart, so my Dad and Grandad replaced floor boards, undersealed the chassis and got the engine running smoothly again. Registration cost the same as a motorbike in the UK back then, so it was the cheapest car all round that Dad could afford. It was agony to travel in the back as young teenagers and the front wheel would lift in a decent crosswind. Wild ride for sure. All the best to you from Wellington, New Zealand.
@@agingwheels That's 2 steps of danger ahead of me pulling on my truck before realising I had my jack stand *DIRECTLY ON* the leaf spring. Don't ask me what I was thinking, I only realised my mistake until after there was a horrible shifting noise!
As far as I know, later Robins have a galvanised chassis, so driving in the winter should be fine. Early ones didn't, and I can attest to that when I attempted to carry 6 people in my Regal (the predecessor to the original Robin), and the spring mount rusted off the chassis and came through the floor...
This channel is amazing: it is focused on such cars which were notoriously used as a but of some jokes even yet with some love most weird vehicles in the world are driven here for fun. Long live the genuine love to extremely quirky vehicles!
TRW selected my dad's yellow 1974 Corvette Stingray to try out their new composite rear leaf spring, that was about 35+ years ago. It was still on it when it was sold with no issues.
Oh, are you in the STL area? St. Louisian here. Don't know how I ended up on this channel but always glad to see a fellow Missourian, you know Missouri loves company.
As antiquated of a suspension as leaf springs are, there are some truly crazy multi leaf packs made for high articulation off road vehicles available. I used to work at a 4 wheel drive shop and we regularly dealt with a local spring manufacturer as well as more distant companies that made some of those crazier packs I mentioned. But you couldn't pay me enough to drive a semi-truck with leaf springs ever again!
If you tightened the spring eye bolts with it in the air, the suspension is binding on the rubber bushings. Not only will it sit oddly, but it will also tear them up in a hurry, though a car that light might take a while to do it compared to something heavier. It needs to be on the ground so the bushings can be in a neutral state when tightened up. Same thing goes for control arms in the front, though often you can cheat with an upper and set it in the air if you know where the arm sits when the car is at ride height. You just have to pull it down to get the ball joint to seat. I do that quite often as the upper bolts can be hard to get at with the car on the ground.
8:39 - you could have wrapped the ratchet strap around the axle and back to the frame and just used it as a normal ratcheting strap that would have held it in place while you did other things. I use it on front-ends all the time. Love your channel.
@8:30.. attach the strap to the bottom screw jack. You don't even need the screw jack to be on the floor, except maybe for stability. You can have the full weight on the hoist, and isolate all your fanangling to the stubborn bits.
2:26 You don't have a ratchetting wrench set yet for the same exact reason I don't* have a power ratchet. Both are a splurge, nearly identical in the majority of cases, one is $26, one is $99. The ratcheting wrench can fit in tighter spaces, so I splurged on that and keep various sizes of pipe around for leverage. I also remember when you busted your Ryobi power ratchet, and figured this is a likely possibility for me and I don't require extra disappointment in my life.
IMO: Replace leaf springs with control arms that go from the axle to the front spring mount (only) & motorcycle coilover shocks (from a goldwing or similar). the pinion angle won't ever be perfect, but it should be close enough. Since you did do leaves, again, slather them in grease & wrap with duct tape. It's not permanent, but it made my jeap ride better, and lasted a couple years before I had to replace the duct tape.
Im a diesel mechanic, and i do leaf springs about 6 times per year on big shit. You need to tighten with u-bolts with weight on the axle compressing the spring. A tiny light thing like this it's probably not the end of the world, but that's the way to do it. Get everything lined up and in place with bolts started, then put the weight of the vehicle on the springs and tighten fully.
At about 8:35 when you were hanging from the car trying to knock it off the lift to crush you, only the fact that the beginning of the video didn't feature a eulogy by your wife kept me from panicking. BE CAREFUL, FOR GOD'S SAKE!
In UK that missing nut would have failed the MoT. If you don't have the equivalent of an MoT inspection over there it is probably worth doing your own inspection once a year.
Please use the handle with your drill - main grip on that and orientated such that when it kicks it stretches your wrist and doesn't hurt you and your trigger hand isn't gripping tightly
The center bolt/pin isn't necessarily on the mid point of the springs, one half can be longer than the other so it is possible to get them in the wrong way around. On my Riley the center bolt on the front springs is about 1/4" closer to one end than the other and the direction you put them does matter.
You knew I was getting ready to tell you to use some lubriCAN, didn't you. When you said stretch in reference to the U bolts I immediately thought I hope the axle tubes are not getting crushed,
You might want to loosen the spring bushing then tighten them with the weight of the car on it. Bushing will bind a bit when you tighten them without the weight.
Good thing you replaced both sides. With the handling being as it is, you don't need one side being different from the other. And don't forget to replace the bushings before you go driving in spring.
"castle nuts" sounds like a lower tier version of "crown jewels". The king has had the finest satin cushions around his crown jewels, while and the knights wore a sheet of metal to protect their castle nuts.
It’s gonna feel like a different car altogether once you start driving it. I replaced the leaf springs in my truck when one splayed out and collapsed and the handling is worlds better than it was before it started to fail.
The mounts must be bent a bit, I think I'd put some 1" shackles or spacers or something on there to lower it a bit, maybe the spacer leafs can be removed?
Yeah, snow and Robins don’t mix in any way, I remember seeing one trying to make progress with the front wheel in the same snow rut as one of the back wheels.
Well I think someone has bodged the leaf springs on the rear of your robin as all that isn't correct, it should be on single leafs, those spacers and extended U bolts shouldn't be there! Probably someone trying to extend the life of some worn out springs to make the ride height back to where it should of been, so even with your new ones your ride will always be too stiff with those spacers and a second leaf If the leaf springs are too strong you'll rip the shock mountings off the rear axle, that happens in the UK when companies build aftermarket springs that are too strong Adam from the Reliant Owners Club BTW
Perhaps the only nice thing about 3-wheeled vehicles with a solid axle is that they self-align. The body may not be parallel to the direction of motion, but the wheels are. Camber, shmamber.
That leaf spring is one of those incredibly rare instances in vehicle repair that actually makes you go "wait, it's that easy?" Aaand there we go we're back to reality lol
Ratchet strap the axle to the body and I also ratchet strap the vehicle to the rack arms if I’m pulling subframes/power trains because we have lots of earthquakes here in Alaska lol
Another lift trick is to use bungies on the lock and descend levers when you have light rights/UTVs so you don’t have to hold it for long periods. Great video man
Usually it's easier to just cut the U-bolts and replace them when doing the springs. Though in your case, remove, wire wheel the treads, chase the nut threads. As for the spring, maybe try to rob one or two from a early to mid 70's cj. I'm only guessing that the lengths might be similar. While it's up on the lift. Tap with a small ball peen hammer on the frame rails to listen for a hollow sounding "thunk" rather than a sharper bang the good metal will have. Now at the end of the video, yeah I wouldn't think too hard about salty roads around the robin. After all you're next to something that was built in the British era of cars having "only the best build quality". Hey stop laughing that had d, you'll break a rib.
Love your video but I found myself saying to the screen, put the tire on, lower the car and your problem can be fixed underneath :) Keep up the good work!
Robert: "I have to find a way to lift the axle without knocking the car of the lift." Me (thinking): "Ratchet straps!!" Robert (in next scene): *has ratchet strap wrapped around axle and frame* I love that I think of something sketchy to solve a problem, and then seeing that Robert had the same thought. This must mean I'm smrt like he is. 🤣
Honestly, i would've gone with a non leaf suspension on this since the opportunity presented itself. In UK, i've seen RRs with modernized suspension (well, i say modernized, but it was something from the late 80's Ford small fleet. Name of the car escapes me atm).
It is reassuring that someone as experienced as you has all of these complications, but it still seems like you took care of it quickly--unlike me, and I have ratcheting wrenches! They are awesome! :)
Is your Robin made in the Morgan factory? I'm trying to figure out why all that wood came out from the front. Yeah yeah it's because you were just during an Under Dunn project in the same place but it's more fun to speculate.
A direct result of all of this is that the Robin, for better or worse, will be a LOT stiffer in the rear. New springs, renewed fastenings, some bushing repairs - how could it be anything else? It might handle less awfully than it used to.
