37 Hudson suspension color

Jay_G

I am in the process of rebuilding the front and rear suspension on my Model 77. It looks to me that gray was the orginial color for the springs, axle, and other related parts. Is this right? At some point the previous owner painted everything black. I guess that way it matched the old grease.

Also does amyone have a source for the rubber bushings?

In addition these springs had covers tht look to be made out of cotton duck (unsure of spelling) that covered burlap that was wraped with cord. Does any one know the color of these? Currently they are black from the grease and dirt.

I plan on making my own using the old ones as a pattern. Does anyone make these already? Does anyone want some? Questions, questions, questions......

Jay

Park_W

Jay, according to what I've seen the original undercarriage stuff would have been a mixture of natural metal and black. Even if you're convinced it should be gray, don't do it that way unless you find some original factory documentation to that effect. An AACA judge is not going to believe it's supposed to be gray, so you'll have to be able to prove it with factory info (vs. something claimed by a club member, etc.). So use your judgment about what parts of what pieces might have been natural metal color, then clean and clearcoat those items. The rest of it, do in semi-gloss black.

My '36 had the remains of those canvas spring covers, and as I recall they were a sort of olive color, kind of like the old camping tents were. Maybe Sheldon Rody's beautiful '37 CC8 has these covers and he can tell you what color they should be. His contact info is at front of the WTN ... the listing of Central region directors. Meanwhile I'll contact a former club member who's an expert on the thirties cars and may know for sure.

Park_W

Jay, I checked with Wayne Graefen, thirties Hudsons restoration expert (and the original 'G' in K-Gap). He checked his original '34 Terraplane, and said the covers were black leather. I can't recall now if my '36's covers were canvas or leather, but I still think canvas. Sorry I couldn't get anything more definite ... maybe someone else out there knows for sure.

Huddy42

My VERY original 1942 Brougham has black leather covers on the rear springs.

[Deleted User]

My 35 H8 has the original canvas covers, they are faded olive drab...46 C8 has metal covers on rear springs, galvinized color.

Jay_G

I also looked at a 37 8 business coup at Vintage Coach which has canvas covers and a 37 teraplane, they were there as well but only the shreads of canvas covers. But again the color was difficult to tell.

Regarding the paint color, I understand the point. It was just strange desolving the paint off the parts with a black coat, then gray, then on the rear springs was the painted on part number under all the coats. Also the front and rear shackles that have the reversed tread had a yellow paint stripe under the gray. On the shackles I could not tell if they had the black paint with all the grease.

Ok, so this is a little too much information. It is just interesting to try and understand what they did back in the day.

Jay

37 CTS

This is a good topic and the responses are great. Last summer I repainted the chassis of my '37 Model 77. After some study of the underside, I painted the chassis and suspension all black. I found nothing that was of any other color.
The underside of the car body had the body color blue which I left untouched.
The evidence of spring covers were tan canvas, perhaps olive drab when new.

If someone has pics of fabric spring covers it would be appreciated it they were posted here. I would like to make some for my car.

[Deleted User]

Is it possible your car was a speacial car for display at the yearly new car show?
Is it a real low serial number?
Roger

StillOutThere

These "spring covers" proper name is spring GAITERS. If you will Google "spring gaiters" you will discover there are companies that specialize in creating them to your specification.

Attaching a photo of the original black leather gaiter on the rear half of the left front spring in my '34 Terraplane K convertible coupe.