37 Terraplane Front Spring Shackles

DRHiebert
DRHiebert Member
in "How To" - Skills, mechanical and other wise

I took the front axle off my 37 Terraplane. It appears the springs have been off the car before, a really long time ago, and may have been reassembled incorrectly. Each side has a short shackle and a long one, the long ones having a left hand thread on one side. The short ones have a right hand thread on both sides. The driver's side had the short shackle at the front, and the long one at the rear, the passenger side was the opposite. Was that correct? Or should each side be the same, and if so, short to front, or rear?

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  • DRHiebert
    DRHiebert Member

    Some follow up. One long shackle and one short shackle have a left threaded side, not both long ones. The left threaded long one was at the rear of the left (driver's side) spring, with the left thread through the spring eye. The left threaded short one was at the rear of the right (passenger side) spring, with the left thread through the spring eye. That seems a bit more consistent, but I'm still curious about the assembly arrangement, I don't doubt the original engineering if it was correct, it just throws me off that it wasn't "even" from side to side. The car sat level. The springs, or shackles anyway, were obviously off the car at least once, a long time ago. I have a shop manual enroute if that will help. I've been relying on a vintage Motors manual and common sense (I hope) thus far.

  • KenU_Tx
    KenU_Tx Member
    edited December 7
    image.png

    The above should help you. Long shackles went to rear of spring, short shackle went to front. These are for the FRONT springs, front on the above list means FRONT of the spring, rear is REAR of the spring.

  • DRHiebert
    DRHiebert Member

    That does help, thankee kindly!

  • DRHiebert
    DRHiebert Member

    Follow up; An ancient PO reinstalled the front springs incorrectly. No way of knowing why they were removed in the first place, but here we are. As noted previously, the shackles were not in the correct places, but once I received the shop manual, I discovered that the springs themselves were backwards, long section to the front, vs. to the rear. Oh, well. Easy enough to rectify since I've got everything apart anyway. The bushings were also gorilla torqued without the J-524 spacer (or any spacer, for that matter), so all the grease zerks were punched out. This is an "only" 78K mile car, not bad for a prewar car, but this makes me go "hmmm". The car had a very amateur restoration done in the '70's I think. There is a photo of it in the WTN on the Indianapolis MS track from the late '70's, early '80's from a HET regional meet with its "new" paint job. Originally Spruce Green, now Royal Maroon. I'd have to find it again for a better timeframe, the article (which I've misplaced) came with the car. I'm beginning to think that old restoration did more harm than good.

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