Thread: One Way To Build A Hot Rod Lincoln

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I was working on my front end the other day, bolting things on to mock up the ride height of the front end. I got to the leaf spring and put it on, here is this nice stainless front end and this black ugly spring in the middle. I did some research and I decided to make my own springs out of stainless. I bought a piece of 17 4 stainless 4" wide and 12' long by 1/4". I took it over and had it sheared into 1 3/4" for the front spring and 2 1/4"for the rear. This has the properties very close to spring steel after heat treating. So tomorrow I'm heading over to the guy that makes my springs and he will bend them up so I can drop them off at the heat treater, then polish them.
Before I decided to do this I E mailed Eaton spring in Michigan, I think, and asked them if they would make them for me. There response was, no one can make springs out of stainless . So then I called my spring guy and he told me he had made some for the front end of a Indian motorcycle a few years back without any trouble. He gave me the phone number of a friend of his in northern Ca. who also makes springs. He told me that he makes coil springs out of stainless all the time. He gave me the heat treating numbers to shoot for. So we will see what happens.
Ken