Well, I was able to get the leaf spring in my GT6 this past Saturday. I had a
few hitches, but it went fairly well. I got the old spring out with no problem
(I'm glad I put anti-seize stuff on the bolts when I did the U-joints last
year). I got the spring out, the bottom leaf was snapped in two and it was
completely flat. Got the new spring out of the garage, Arrgg!!, it's
different from what I pulled out. The new one is the same as what's shown in
the book and the dimensions are the same, except the leaves are thinner. The
old one had the top 4 leaves bundled together and the bottom leaf was seperated
by a steel plate. The new one has all bolted together. Hmmm. Called Brit
Motorsports up. He looked up the part number. Yep, I got the right spring for
a GT6. He asked what the old one looked like and how many bolts hold it to the
differential. Four bolts hold it down. He sez it looks like I've got a
Spit rear end in the car, which was very common 'cause the GT6's got torn up
really easy. Anyone else seen or done this??? Anyway, he said I don't want to
put a Spit spring back in since the spring rate is too low for a GT6. He said
if I can get it bolted to the diff, it should work fine. After having lunch
and a moment to think about it, I took the bottom plate off the old spring,
which conveniently had a hole in the center and used that for the top plate.
Went under the car a disconnected both U-joints and brake lines and I was able
to bolt the spring in. The studs were a little to long but a couple washers
took care of that. Now I see where I could have used the big bar to get the
spring in place on the vertical link. I was able to wrangle it in place and
get it all together. Wow, the car actually sits level and the rear tires are
vertical. I was able to take a good test drive Sunday on Hwy 9 from Boulder
Creek to the brewers festival in Mountain View. It seems to handle better too.
BTW, thanks for all the responses on last week.
Mike G.
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