third member and leaf springs

If you are going through all the trouble to remove the springs anyway, why not replace them. Think about it-those poor springs have been doing their job for the past 40+ years, every single day, without a break. Even when the car is just parked, the springs still have to support the car's weight.

Leaf springs wear out.

One idea if you want to keep your original part numbers would be to transfer your old bottom leafs onto a new set of springs.

Since you have a Calif car in Calif the springs are likely very nice (min or no pitting) so you can clamp them with a couple of C clamps or put the spring in a vise. Remove the band clamps (youu should oder some replacements since the little tabs may break) and the retaining bolt.

Chemically strip or clean (don't sand blast them) You can then color the metal or paint them (had some pretty decent results using 67-73 Dark Charcoal metallic paint on some the other day)

Then reassemble them, slap on a paint mark and reinstall them.

Finding new springs my be difficult when it comes to find ones with the right spring shape at the ends

Hope this helps a little

When i did my third member it fit on a 5 gallon pale then i sprayed it with gasket remover . Let it soak for a while then hosed it off and it removed all the old paint. I used Eastwood detail gray on my leaf springs and they looked good.

Mike

Jeff - "Chemically strip or clean (don't sand blast them)".....I've heard this before, relative to both coil and leaf springs. While I understand that heating them with aggressive sandblasting might affect the springs, I don't see how glass beading them could affect them at all. Do you have an issue with glass beading these parts?

What are you actually saying about media blasting springs and why?