Topic: leaf springs

[AJ]

After couple days soaking in Evaporust,  lots of rubbing with Permablue gun bluing and steel wood.  Followed by Rust Prevention Magic RPM using a heat gun.

I first applied the gun bluing to areas of the leafs that wouldn?t be visible after assembly to get a method of application dialed in.  Takes a lot of rubbing to get uniform color.   

Probably better ways to do it such as soaking in Instablak products but i?m satisfied with how mine turned out considering a first time amateurs attempt.

Also applied RPM to straps before using them.

[Bob Gaines]

After couple days soaking in Evaporust,  lots of rubbing with Permablue gun bluing and steel wood.  Followed by Rust Prevention Magic RPM using a heat gun.

I first applied the gun bluing to areas of the leafs that wouldn?t be visible after assembly to get a method of application dialed in.  Takes a lot of rubbing to get uniform color.   

Probably better ways to do it such as soaking in Instablak products but i?m satisfied with how mine turned out considering a first time amateurs attempt.

Also applied RPM to straps before using them.

They look good and historically authentic. You may want to add the white identification paint to the front spring eye area to simulate what they looked like before being installed at AO Smith (69/70 Shelby only) . Spray applied as if from a rattle can is typical.

[dkknab]

After couple days soaking in Evaporust,  lots of rubbing with Permablue gun bluing and steel wood.  Followed by Rust Prevention Magic RPM using a heat gun.

I first applied the gun bluing to areas of the leafs that wouldn?t be visible after assembly to get a method of application dialed in.  Takes a lot of rubbing to get uniform color.   

Probably better ways to do it such as soaking in Instablak products but i?m satisfied with how mine turned out considering a first time amateurs attempt.

Also applied RPM to straps before using them.

Thanks for sharing.  One set of my leafs have been soaking about 4 days,  the other partial set 3 days.  I still need to push out the bushing from the driver side.  I'm thinking at least one more day if not 2 to soak. Plus the 4 gallons of Evaporust is quite black so I'm wondering if I need to change it out.  That's another $100 or so.  Between the Evaporust,  new bushings which aren't cheap, 6 clamps and 2 centering bolts, I'm approaching the cost of new leafs.  But they'd need work too to make right.

A mistake I made a while back was to use rust converter on the exposed parts of the springs.  If you're going to restore the springs don't do it.  The parts with that stuff on it is taking forever to clean up in the Evaporust. Guess the converter really works.

[Bob Gaines]

Thanks for sharing.  One set of my leafs have been soaking about 4 days,  the other partial set 3 days.  I still need to push out the bushing from the driver side.  I'm thinking at least one more day if not 2 to soak. Plus the 4 gallons of Evaporust is quite black so I'm wondering if I need to change it out.  That's another $100 or so.  Between the Evaporust,  new bushings which aren't cheap, 6 clamps and 2 centering bolts, I'm approaching the cost of new leafs.  But they'd need work too to make right.

A mistake I made a while back was to use rust converter on the exposed parts of the springs.  If you're going to restore the springs don't do it.  The parts with that stuff on it is taking forever to clean up in the Evaporust. Guess the converter really works.

Lets us know if the evaporust takes off the rust converter. I don't have any previous experience with a rust converted barrier and I am interested in your results. I have a suspicion that once the rust is converted that the evaporust will treat it like paint and not touch it much. It may have have to be scraped off . I hope that I am wrong for your sake.

[AJ]

I periodically removed leafs from the evaporust tub and scrubbed them with wire brush and steel wool.  Then placed them back into the evaporust.  Did that a couple times as they soaked.  Not sure how much it helped but i couldn?t resist doing that.  The evaporust was fresh when i started but became black pretty quickly.  In retrospect may have been more effective or efficient to just have them media blasted from the get go.  But i already had the soaking tub built as i?d just previously used it to soak the driveshaft.   

[dkknab]

Lets us know if the evaporust takes off the rust converter. I don't have any previous experience with a rust converted barrier and I am interested in your results. I have a suspicion that once the rust is converted that the evaporust will treat it like paint and not touch it much. It may have have to be scraped off . I hope that I am wrong for your sake.

The bad news is evaporust isn't real effective on converted rust. I suspect you are 100% correct that the Evaporust thinks the converted rust is good stuff.  I've had to scrape the areas with converted rust off.  I used a wide chisel and wire brush multiple times.  It's not going away without a fight but it is coming off slowly.

It does seem that once the topmost layer is removed evaporust is able to work on it more readily.