Rear Spring Clip Bars
 

Just wondered if anyone has had a cast iron clip break whilst fitting a rear spring or worse still have a clip fail while driving . The repro pair I have for my roadster definately look cast iron and would guess Chinese or maybe Indian . I do have many original height ones and I could easily fabricate a flat bar spacer to get the right height . My local "A" factor has told me there is a question mark over these repro clips .

John in warm sunny evening Suffolk County England .

Re: Rear Spring Clip Bars
 

Um. Your "King's English" may be defeating the query.

The dialect does have its quirks.

Do you mean the spring shackles which hold the spring eye to the spring perch either front or rear?

Joe K

Re: Rear Spring Clip Bars
 

Bratton's calls it a bottom plate

https://www.brattons.com/seven-or-8-...tom-plate.html


I have repo's that are maybe three years old and they have worked fine....

Re: Rear Spring Clip Bars
 

I thought he was talking about the spring clamps. The vendors supply rear spring clamps in multiple heights because of the variety of combinations of rear springs found in the wild.

Re: Rear Spring Clip Bars
 

The title is out of my Snyders catalogue .The Brattons part is the same thing . The Brattons picture is the clip I have and looks cast iron . Most all used clips I have are bent to varying degrees . The cast pair I have are used (swap meet) but not bent and I think they would break first if overtightened . Just curious .

John in same plce same weather .

Re: Rear Spring Clip Bars
 

John When I started building my AV8 roadster I bought front and rear spring clamp bars that hold the springs with u bolts to the crossmember. I tightened the rear clip just snug because I just needed to roll the frame around.

The clip broke in half. It was cast iron. Do not trust these reproduction clamps.
I made one for the rear and used an original for the front.
This is a real safety item.
I posted pictures on the HAMB but do not have them now.

The originals are forged steel.

Found pictures.
John

Re: Rear Spring Clip Bars
 

I milled some out of 1018 the other day. Hoping they'll be OK.

Re: Rear Spring Clip Bars
 

That should be fine. Thats what I used. Originals are plentiful and a good choice.

John

Re: Rear Spring Clip Bars
 

Most of them just clamp the spring securely to the cross member to keep it from shifting. The cross member should hold most of the load. There were round top U-bolts and more rectangular shaped on the front end depending on the year of manufacture. On the clips, I would prefer either the original forged ones or new ones made from structural steel stampings. The cast iron or cast steel ones would need to be ductile material or they can crack/break the ears easier than forged. They only act as a clamp plate but the u-bolts being torqued up does put some strain on them. Having the correct U-bolts for the upper hand crank bearing clip on the front and the correct shaped lower clips on the back is important. The parts have to fit together well and some of the cheap reproduction stuff may be suspect. There are different rear clips depending on thickness of spring but they are sandwiched between the U-bolt nuts and the cross member. I would shim them if there is any gap between the clip and the cross member. They need to be tight but they don't need a bending load on those four ears.