1949 Cadillac leaf springs specifications

[kimkbh]

Hi there,

I have undergone a renovation on the leaf springs for my 1949 Cadillac Sedanette series 61. So I unmounted the leaf spring and found what I believe, was the best company for that job here in Denmark. Unfortunately Denmark is a small country and we have no companies that is specialized in renovating springs for vintage cars. But this company has been around since 1922, so it was my best bet.

I told them specific to not change the height on the spring and keep the original dimensions, but when I mounted the leaf springs, I really had to struggle because it seemed like the geometry was messed up. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and wanted to mount them to see how they would set. When they were mounted, the real shackles were based on the frame of my car and not free to move (see picture) and the wheel is no longer in the center of my wheelhouse. (see picture). Beside that, they are way to stiff now and can't hardly be moved up and down.

When I talked to them, they admitted that they did not use any specification or measurements when doing the renovation which I believed they would and they said they had no such specifications at all. At least there were no problem in getting them to fix it, but now I need some specifications so they can fix them up right this time.

So I hope that someone out there, has the original measurements for the leaf springs? Perhaps also some torque specifications for how hard Cadillac wanted the spring to be?


Kind regards
Kim

[Steve Passmore]

This is a common problem with Cadillacs Kim. Its not as fault in the leaf spring, they have just flipped over the front. You have to jack the car up, get someone with a long strong bar placed in the shackle forcing it back the right way while you lower the car.

There have been many threads on here regarding this matter.  Before the War Cadillac had a bracket fixed to the chassis to prevent this happening. I don't know why they stopped fitting them.   see my picture and you can see how the bracket stops the shackle from going forward.

I keep a wooden wedge in my tool kit for working on my 41s and lock this into the shackle before jacking the car up. You will need to do the same because every time you lift the car the shackle will flip over again.

[Jay Friedman]

I've heard of this problem with spring shackles but never experienced it in my own '49. 

I replaced the rear springs in my sedanette many years ago.  I took a year or so for the springs to "settle" to a normal height, before which the back of the car was abnormally high. 

I don't know much about springs, but looked up the specifications for the rear springs in the 1949 shop manual.  All it says for the Club Coupe (sedanette) is:

Rate Per Inch: 105 (I don't know what this means.)
Number of leaves: 8
Normal Load: 1055 (I assume this means 1,055 pounds, but don't know.)

I hope this helps.

[Caddy Wizard]

I've had to flip the leaf spring shackles a few times.  Tricky and scary.  But doable.

[kimkbh]

This is a common problem with Cadillacs Kim. Its not as fault in the leaf spring, they have just flipped over the front. You have to jack the car up, get someone with a long strong bar placed in the shackle forcing it back the right way while you lower the car.

There have been many threads on here regarding this matter.  Before the War Cadillac had a bracket fixed to the chassis to prevent this happening. I don't know why they stopped fitting them.   see my picture and you can see how the bracket stops the shackle from going forward.

I keep a wooden wedge in my tool kit for working on my 41s and lock this into the shackle before jacking the car up. You will need to do the same because every time you lift the car the shackle will flip over again.

Thanks for the replay, Steve.

I did try to do that, but the spring is still way to short, so I need to get them modified. Its not very Cadillac-like to engineer something that needs wooden wedges.

[kimkbh]

I've heard of this problem with spring shackles but never experienced it in my own '49. 

I replaced the rear springs in my sedanette many years ago.  I took a year or so for the springs to "settle" to a normal height, before which the back of the car was abnormally high. 

I don't know much about springs, but looked up the specifications for the rear springs in the 1949 shop manual.  All it says for the Club Coupe (sedanette) is:

Rate Per Inch: 105 (I don't know what this means.)
Number of leaves: 8
Normal Load: 1055 (I assume this means 1,055 pounds, but don't know.)

I hope this helps.

Hey Jay,

Thanks for the numbers, and also verified them in my manual, but unfortunatly they do not mentied anything about the length. I did find a skannet 1949 Cadillac datacard that states that the length is 54.5"