I had read about people using wedges made from old broken leaf springs from a car or truck. They had said they got the broken leaf springs for free from an auto shop. That seemed pretty easy. I decided to try a couple wrecking yards though. The first couple I called said they couldn’t help me. But then I called my favorite place which is a longer drive, and they said sure, come on down. So I drove down on Saturday morning, and they told me to go out and look in the one corner. I looked around expecting a pile of broken leaf springs. No such luck. I looked around and found a broken leaf spring on a car. All I had to do was remove a single bolt. My largest socket was just a little too small. I used a crecent wrench and got the nut off, but couldn’t get the bolt off. I work on it for a bit, but finally gave up. I did find a rusty piece of leaf spring nearby that was about 20 inches long. I kept it. I looked around and found another broken leaf spring held only by a single bolt. I put a little effort to see if I could get this off, but no. Then I stumbled over a leaf spring that had already been removed, and head to the office. The guy looked at what I had, and said go ahead and take em. Way cool! I shoved them in my car and drove home.
The tricky part was how to cut them. Spring steel is hard! I didn’t want to my sawing away with a hack saw. I went to Harbor Freight. I had thought about buying some 4 inch metal cutting disks and a 4 1/2 inch angle grinder. The disks were only a few bucks, and the angle grinder under $20 I think. But then I saw some 7 inch metal cutting disks. I ended up buying the 7 inch disks and was going to try them on my circular saw at home. That worked out great. It took a little while to cut through the spring steel, but not nearly as long as trying to cut them with a hack saw. Cut the leaf spring into pieces about 8 or 10 inches long.
I used my heavy duty Dewalt bench grinder to clean up the sharp edges of the cuts. Then I proceded to sharpen one end to a wedge point. Again, it took a while due to the hardness of the spring steel. Overall, they were very cheap with the only costs being $10 for a 10 pack of metal cutting disks (I only used one of them), and some gas to go to the salvage yard. What a deal. I may try to get another leaf spring or two. We’ll see how these work.
yet another post I can help out on… the best place to get leaf spring pieces is ThruWay spring service on Mt. Read Blvd. I got a whooole bunch from them many moons ago and they hold up like a champ. Free too. The best way to cut them is with an oxy acetylene torch. Burn through the middle and that way you don’t wreck the strength at the ends. Also the other thing that works good for opening up faults is log splitting wedges. They last a long time and hold up surprisingly well (still using my original set from 15 years ago)
Comment by Jeremy — March 1, 2009 @ 11:39 pm