Uneconomical

This is the word that went through my head continuously about an hour or so after I started today. Most likely, this is true for everything I am doing in my spare time with classic cars, but then again – a hobby doesn’t need to be economical. But the task I started today was really stupid in this sense.

With the rear axles all cleaned up and coated with Owatrol oil – I also wanted to get the dirty, rusty leaf springs in a better shape. Even though they look bad – they don’t need to be replaced. Last year, when I helped putting in new leaf springs in a friends MGBs roadster I measured the height of the new springs. The ones I have are just 3mm off and completely straight. This is great and after watching this John Twist video it was clear for me that I wanted to keep them.

The process is straight forward, and perfect instructions can be found in this awesome video from JRs garage. Taking them apart took approx. 10 min per side. What is not covered in this video is the time required to clean the individual parts. If you can do it quicker than 3 hours – kudos to you. After 3,5h with Clear-Strip-Disks and wire-wheels on the grinder I decided that the result is good enough. Another 30min were required to wipe them with silicone cleaner and the first coat of Owatrol oil.

Instead of ordering the fitting kit and poly bushes – I should have ordered and entire leaf-spring-kit. In total this would have not cost more, as the CSD disks, paint and bolts also add up. Well, this was uneconomical but at least I collected some sustainability points 🙂

Talking about uneconomical: A potential future project would have fallen into this category as well. Fortunately, I managed to say “no, thank you” this time. Pictures say more than words here.