2002 Ford Ranger - Leaf Springs Need Love, Too

The last thing many people think about on their vehicles is leaf-spring maintenance. Because of the type of abusive work environment that leaf springs are designed to operate in, it is easy to install a set and forget about them for the life of the vehicle. Due to improper loads, inferior spring metal, corrosion, and other leaf-spring hazards, leaf springs can slowly lose their ability to articulate or hold ride height over time. Just like anything else on your vehicle, leaf-spring packs need to be maintained from time to time.

Like all Deaver springs, our custom 10-leaf pack features a higher leaf count, using thinner leaves that allow the spring pack to be more flexible and the spring rate to be progressive. The springs feature diamond-cut inner leaf ends, durable military-wrapped spring eyes, and OEM bushings, all of which work together for unparalleled ride quality.

For a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on when refurbishing, or "race prepping," a set of leaf springs, we turned to leaf-spring experts Deaver Spring in Santa Ana, California. Deaver Spring has been around since 1892, back when the primary customers were those with horse-drawn carriages and when a series of overhead belts and pulleys powered the equipment. Since those olden days, leaf-spring technology has improved by leaps and bounds, and Deaver still uses equipment running off the same belt-and-pulley system. Many of the high-end lift kits from other suspension companies you are no doubt familiar with use private-label Deaver-made spring packs. While its application list is extensive, Deaver places a heavy emphasis on the 4x4 community.

Back when we were running a lift kit on our Project RangeRunner Ford Ranger, we had Deaver build us one of its custom long-travel spring packs. Jeff Crosby, who operates Deaver with his father Gary, nailed down what we wanted on the first try. Ride quality, height, and spring rates were exactly what we were looking for, yet at 500 pounds, we still had enough load capacity for the tongue weight of a trailer or all the gear we take when exploring the backcountry. Seeing as we have changed the mission of RangeRunner, we had to decide what to do with our rear leaf pack. Since we felt that this pack worked so well with our truck, we decided to keep it and have it de-arched, retuned, and race prepped. Follow along as Deaver ace spring-fitter Erik Wehn took us through the process of refurbishing our leaf pack.

After Erik took measurements to get a reference point, he got to work disassembling the spring pack.	Next, the secondary leaves were set aside, so that Erik could access the main leaves.	With the main leaves free from the pack, Erik remeasured the arch of the main leaves.
With this gear-driven spring roller, Erik is able to apply pressure to individual areas of the spring, changing spring arch and shape of the leaf. In our case, we were taking 1.5 inches of height out of the pack.	Next, the packs are temporarily reassembled and remeasured against the original numbers for our desired arch.	Once the numbers and symmetry were identical between the packs, Erik began to polish the surface rust from each individual leaf.
While Deaver includes Teflon pucks between the leaves to aid in leaf-pack flexibility and ride quality, Erik prefers using a grinder to radius the edges to achieve the same result. While this process is more labor intensive, it is a better choice for springs that will see heavy off-pavement use since the Teflon sliders often break off or leave gaps for rocks to lodge in between the springs, creating more friction than the sliders were intended to remove.	Once each leaf has been prepped, a liberal coating of Moly spray is applied to the springs, to which it bonds, providing a lubricated surface between leaves that offers high resistance to loads, temperature, wear, with minimal dust attraction.	With the help of a real anvil and some elbow grease, Erik removed the old bushings from the spring and installed new ones.
Erik then reinstalled the factory shackle, which in this application is reverse-mounted to the truck for maximum travel.	Before the springs can be returned to the truck, they are coated with Deaver's famous rust-inhibiting black paint.	Old U-bolts should never be reused, so Deaver makes their own U-bolts in-house for each application.

Lastly, Erik reinstalled our Deaver Springs, where once again, the desired ride height and performance were right on the money and we were able to enjoy our 17 inches of rear wheel travel.