Russ Best and Spring Setting

By Russ Best

The one thing you need to watch out for is kinking when setting a spring. This can happen if you squeeze the spring down around a bar that's too thin. What I've done is I purchased several ground bars of steel about 15" in length. Each bar fits the spring it's intended for rather well, and that bar acts as a guide while the spring is being squeezed together. One end of each bar is drilled and tapped, then a washer and screw are attached at that end.

You then slide the spring over the bar followed by a large fender washer whose hole slides easily down the bar. This means the spring is trapped between two washers with the rod running thru it. You can then place this set up in your spring compressor and apply pressure until the spring is compressed. Once this is done, the spring is set. Simply remove the pressure and slide the spring off the bar. It will be shorter than when you started. For me, my spring compressor is a 4"wide steel beam that's 48" long, on which is mounted a powerful air cylinder with a 9" stroke.

The beam has a series of hole pairs drilled and tapped into it about every 1 1/4" that run all the way to the end. I also have a section of 4" angle iron cut to fit on the beam, with two bolt holes drilled in the bottom. The angle iron has a 'U" milled down its' center--forklike-- and the face of the angle iron is covered with thick cowhide (protects the finish on barrels and bluing). Mounted above the cylinder are brass air valves and bleeders, plus a pressure gage and a pressure regulator with a compressed air quick connect on the input side. This set up enables me to exert almost 700 psi of pressure on a spring by simply opening a valve.

RB