C-3 Leaf Spring Photos

[Jeremy D.]

Is there a book out there that has a GOOD picture of a chrome bumper C3 ORIGINAL std. 9 leaf spring, particularly a '71? Been to Eaton, been on the Restorer CD-rom....lots of great info, but I just want a picture for my own knowledge furtherment. I know research is all-important....but it cuts too far into my wrenching time, what little I have. Thanks in advance!

[Bill C.]

Re: C-3 Leaf Spring Photos

hope this helps ....

[Jeremy D.]

Re: C-3 Leaf Spring Photos

SWEET.....one question, when the spring was off the car, did it look like this one, with the 3 "helper" springs on the top?1971 LT-1 023.jpg
Thanks once again in advance!

[Terry B.]

Re: C-3 Leaf Spring Photos

It looks to be the correct spring as far as I can tell from the picture. It has the curled ends on each leaf. The longest leaf at the bottom should not be curled but be angled at the end with something close to a 45 degree trim. You probably know it is not the correct color. It is suppose to be gray with the black rubber inserts between each leaf. If this is a 40 year old spring that has been on a Corvette for alot of miles, it may not give you the correct ride height. However, if it's one that is still relatively fresh, it will give you a little higher height than you're accustom to. That's not a bad thing however. It looks like it is still fresh with the curve it has on the floor picture. I hope this helps.

[Jeremy D.]

Re: C-3 Leaf Spring Photos

The spring came off a '71 car that has sat for a LONG time...and is sagged out. What happened was, I was taking the rear of the car out to do the trailing arms and find the tank sticker, and I noticed the bottom leaf of the spring had yellow stenciled numbers on it. So, back a few months ago, I asked about it on this website, and we concluded that it was a replacement spring.....so dummy me just assumed the ENTIRE SPRING had been replaced.
This week, I took a known repro spring from my '70 to my spring shop to replace a broken main leaf (DON'T ASK!) and lo and behold, the brand new main leaf they had had the same friggin' stencil, just a different number. So it has occurred to me that way back in the day, someone had just replaced the MAIN LEAF on my '71 spring, NOT THE ENTIRE SPRING....thus making me freaking estatic, as Eaton has the correct main leaf, and they'll refurbish the old spring and all the leaves to correct specs and I can use my original inserts....believe it or not, there's still flakes of gray on it, you just have to look hard....the leaves look to be in decent shape, no big holes or pits so far....the car will never be driven much, and if it's 8/9ths original, I'm happy as a clam......but do clams drive Corvettes? Whoah, more coffee needed.....

[Juliet P.]

Re: C-3 Leaf Spring Photos

I have a lot of photos from when I restored my rear spring. It's for a '70, but some of the details likely apply to 71 also.

http://www.julietpage.com/corvettes/rearspring/rearspring.htm

~Juliet

[Jeremy D.]

Re: C-3 Leaf Spring Photos...PERFECT!!!

Thank You very Much, Juliet! That's EXACTLY what I was looking for. Funny I never saw it on the '70 Registry page, my '70 is on there....but your photos and info combined with Restorer articles give me all the info I need. Awesome!!!