While air ride equipped trucks are very common on the highways here in the United States, with the majority of big over the road trucks and trailers being air ride equipped from the factory now, there are still plenty of leaf-sprung trucks performing other jobs. It is not uncommon to see leaf springs on more utilitarian trucks like dump trucks and the like, and in a lot of other countries leaf springs are still the norm on certain kinds of trucks. The leaf spring packs on trucks like these are huge, but the basics are still the same as the leaf springs found on your pickup truck where multiple leaves are stacked on top of each other. There are just more of them, and they are a bit thicker, on these big truck leaf packs. But how do they make those leaf springs?
It’s actually a simple but cool process that involves cutting steel to length, heating it red hot, forming and shaping it, quenching it for heat treating, cleaning, drilling, clamping, and painting. Simple right? The fact that all the pieces are hot and heavy certainly makes it a bit challenging and dangerous if not handled correctly, but the process overall is simple. In this video you’ll see the individual leaf going through the process before becoming a part of the large spring pack, including the rolling to get the arched shape, and they show everything but making the spring eyes on the main leaf.
It’s pretty cool to see this kind of industrial manufacturing, and because it isn’t in the United States it really does look like something you might have seen in the 1950’s. I dig it and would totally love to follow along and make a set of leaf springs.
Check it out.
From time to time I find myself watching these types of videos.
Hole in the wall shop doing it the way it was done decades ago.
Pretty incredible in this day and age.