My friends The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band is stuck in Columbus, OH with a broken leaf spring on the equipment trailer they haul behind their van. They have to be in Detroit tomorrow. If this was a problem with the van, they could get it fixed, but you don’t expect a problem with the trailer.
Here’s what they posted on Facebook
We need HELP! We have a broken leaf Spring on our trailer in Columbus OH and we are having a hard time finding a place to fix it or even just get the part (and we can try to fix it ourself). Any fans out there that can help us? It’s Friday night and we need to be in Detroit tomorrow! Help!!
They are some of the hardest working musicians I have ever known, playing more than 200 dates a year all over the world, but playing Country Blues they don’t make U2 money.
Tell them to call the local Penske truck leasing branch and tell them their predicament and ask for the name of a road service that can help them out. Very good chance the shop foreman will give them a referral.
I’ll pass it along, thanks! Someone else suggested that the leaf spring could be welded, but that sounds difficult. I suppose their other option is just leasing a truck for that trip, but I can imagine that it will be really expansive.
renting something is the best bet. while someone could weld the springs back together (leaf springs are usually a “pack” of several layers, not one single piece of metal) springs are meant to flex. And a weld that isn’t annealed afterward is likely to be brittle and just break again.
I used a broken leaf spring for a shock mount one time. I welded the bracket to it and when I hit it with a hammer to nock the slag off the entire weld came out in 1 piece. Great penetration and beautiful weld that did not adhere at all to the spring steel. Springs cannot be welded period without a long process of untempering and retempering and annealing and then they still can’t be used as springs but might be repurposed for something else.
Back in my days of short track racing, we use to cut and weld leaf springs all the time. The usual practice was cut the spring about 3" from the front mount, flip the spring over, cut off a couple inches and weld it back on the front mount piece. The short piece that was cut off was used as a doubler over the weld. Bolt it back onto the rear mount, reinstall the rear end and go racing. I never heard of anyone breaking a leaf after this was done.