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Leafspring Pads... Make Your Own and Save Some Dough!by 29EHV8 aka "Shiny" I used to cut my own leafspring pads with my torch but it took forever to clean up all the cuts and get em to match each other.A couple of years ago I finally figured out a way to do it much simpler and cleaner!Anyone on here should be able to do this and rather than hand your hot rod or trailer supply shop your money do this yourself with scrap steel.
I start off cutting two pieces of 2"x2"x3/16" square tube 6" long.
Next drill a 5/8" hole in the center of your tubing (this is to sit over your leafspring pin).
Next thing is cut a piece of 1"x2" rectangle tubing 6" long and drill a 3/16" hole in the middle of each of the 1" sides like above. The 5/8" holes you just drilled go to the outsides.
Clamp all three together with your trusty visegrips like so.....
Put in your drillpress or vise and holesaw a 3" hole in the tubes,but just into the topside. Then flip over and do the same to bottomside.
This what you should end up with.....
Next put it back in your chopsaw and cut the top part off.
Should be cutting on the white lines.Get it??
Should end up with two pieces that look like this.These are your new springpads....
Sometimes I hafta grind where the whitelines are in the above pic because some axle tubes are a lil bigger than other axle tubes....
Its as easy as 1,2,3 and you don't hafta fork out the beans to another shop owner.Keep the 1"x2" piece around for future leafspring pads you'll need.I've had the same one forever!I also make 2"x3",2"x4",2"x5" for different ride heights. Way better then running lowering blocks.I also have a few different sizes on hand in case I wanna switch ride heights. I usually cut the 2" tubes on an angle and cap the ends to make it have a cleaner look on the finished rearend in the hot rod. Hope I saved some of you some future spent dough...... -Shiny-
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