what goes between leafs?

I'm rebuilding a leaf pack and doing a mix n match leaf spring w/ a XJ pack and a Dakota pack.. And a friend says to grease the leaves, and another friend says no dont, caz it'll eveuntally slip out of alignment.. Also the packs I took apart (dakota) had these sheets of metal between the leaves..

So I'm kinda confused/stuck of to what to do here.... So.. Input away!

Basically.. what do I do in between the seperate leaves?

i just ended up using wheel bearing grease between them and those thin sheets of metal that came with the dakota packs. I went overboard with the grease but hell atleast they don't squeak

Grease attracts dirt though. Use liners (graphite I think) that are available from leaf spring stores, or use slip paint (heard of this but have never been able to find it locally).

poly liners or graphite paint. do a search here and you will find plenty of info on both. look particularly for Goatman's posts

Sometimes there is nothing between the leafs, sometimes plastic pads at the end of the leafs, sometimes thin steel shims between the leafs at the center of the pack. The whole idea is to alow the leafs to slide on each other without binding and with the least friction. Teflon strips between each leaf is best. Nothing between each leaf actually works fine for most applications. I wouldn't use grease myself though, later in life that grease can dry out and cause more problems than it solves. If there were a way to constantly renew the grease (grease fittings) or if it was sealed from the elements that would be different.

HTH,
B-loose

do you mean "Slip Plate"? That's the stuff they use on fifth wheels. What's graphite paint? I sprayed silicone on them when I took them apart to stick in the AAL because that's all I had. Would have liked some teflon though.

y2kxj said:

do you mean "Slip Plate"? That's the stuff they use on fifth wheels. What's graphite paint?

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www.slipplate.com

I found some locally at grainger's.. you might have luck with them.

zeppeh said:

i just ended up using wheel bearing grease between them and those thin sheets of metal that came with the dakota packs. I went overboard with the grease but hell atleast they don't squeak

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Same thing I did. Bearing grease was handy. Except I used all plastic inserts I could find from S-10 pack. Does in fact collect a lot of dirt and I would reccomned teflon spray, but I still don't have any squeaks with normal driving.

my ome leaf packs have greasable teflon pads between the leaves, and there is a little grease hole in each leaf where u shoot the grease