Rear Leaf Spring found starting to splinter

[QB93Z]

Back in August while we were replacing the clutch in Darrin's 1990 ZR-1, we noticed that there was damage to the rear leaf spring. The damage appeared to be surface cracking but it was hard to examine. The only way we noticed it was that the exhaust system was off the car to pull the transmission. The car has 70,000+ miles.

Last weekend we replaced Darrin's rear spring and bushings. Thanks to Marc Haibeck for having a replacement spring available.

Easy job: Jack up the car, use two bottle jacks to "compress" the spring, remove the retaining nuts on the hanger bolts, remove the saddle bolts at the center of the spring and it is out.

Pics:
Over all view of the spring (spring is lying upside-down):



The damage was much more extensive that we thought from the visual inspection with the spring on the car. Close-up of left side of the spring showing damage:


Right side of the spring:




While we had the tools out, we replaced the spring bushings on my 1993 ZR-1 ,with 104,000 miles. These are the bushings we took off:




Jim