CCCCCCCCC - I can't seem to post without adding some more characters.


Quote Originally Posted by HiboyGal
I asked two pretty hotrod savvy people and got two completely different answers, so now I am confused and thought I'd better run it by you guys. Please only answer this if you have a 1932 with hairpins and have removed and reinstalled your hairpins. THanks:

I will be sending my hairpins to get rechromed. No longer shall my hairpins be red. Currently the hairpins are bolted to a small braket welded to the bottom of the frame on one end and to my batwings on the other two ends. In short, 3 large bolts hold everything together. I am posting photos at the end of this post to help you figure things out.

Can you walk me through the procedure of removing them and then reinstalling them.

1- will I need to jack up the car or not necessary?

Yes.
Set the car on jackstands under the frame - pad the jackstands with clean rags to prevent paint damage to the frame.
If you don't get the weight off the wheels,the axle can shift and bend things when the 2nd hairpin is removed because the only thing keeping the axle from twisting when the hairpin is off is the spring shackles.
Watch out for an abrupt shift of the hairpin when the 2nd one is disconnected from the frame.


2- will I need to worry about holding everything in place while hairpins are removed and sent out to rechromed or will the front leaf spring keep everything steady until my hairpins return. NEEDLESS TO SAY I WOULD NOT BE MOVING THE CAR OR DRIVING IT WHILE HAIRPINS ARE OFF>

No worries.
The axle will hang from the spring with the car on jackstands once the hairpins are removed.

3- how would you guys go about measuring the threads so to put everything back EXACTELY the same way it was.

Mark each hairpin left and right in an inconspicuous place.
Reason being, they're not always the same exact length, but most times they are.
Either count the exposed number of threads if there's not too many or measure.
Write it down.

Measuring may not be completely necessary if you're set up to read your caster.
Or . . . double check alignment at a front end shop.

You may want to ask the shop if they do Mil-Spec plating.
That's where they bake the axle for about an hour after it comes out of the last rinse of the chrome plating process.
A good way to go imo.
Chroming can create a hydrogen-embrittlement problem which can lead to breakage problems in suspension components.

That said, the rear 4 bars on my 32 are chromed without baking and there's been no problems.

You may want to Google "hydrogen embrittlement" or similar and do a little reading on it.

I was given different and sometimes contradictory answers to above questions, so I hope you guys can clarify things for me. This is my next move, along with bias plys tires.

Thanks a zillion,

Hiboy Girl

I will post a photo of the batwing area today. Here is the photo of the other end of the hairpin set-up.