Freightliner rear spring problems

Kind of normal. May have to loosen the u-bolts. Use a porta power, come-a-long or what ever. No rush for safety sake.

 

If you tightened down the u-bolts before bolting the spring up to the hanger it could very well be just a simple case of misalignment.

Whenever I re-bushinged the Airliner suspension, I'd support the frame and pull 1 spring at a time. Replace the bushing and re-install in the hanger first. Then use a jack to push the spring up into place on the axle. Then rattle up the u-bolts. Seemed to keep everything in decent alignment.

 

I would use new ubolts. Like mentioned, try loosening everything while the frame is safely jacked up and supported and see if they fall into place. Hard to know exactly what you have going on there without some pictures.

 

Measure from the spring to the brake spider on each side. If they are not equal an axle alignment dowel maybe sheared. They are between the axle housing and spring saddles. If they are the same just force the spring eyes to match the hangers.

 

U bolts are considered one time use as they stretch when torqued properly and will not stay tight if re used.

 

Sounds like you should loosen all u bolts and pull rear of springs together. This will spread the fronts apart.I assume when you say hitting front hangers they are too close together.Keeping Old unbolts on but loose for movement. Once it’s all lined up replace u bolts. Torque good . You’ll need to play with height and use a jack and or come along to set torque rod. They probably just got spread out due to bad bushings. If u bolts are still in correct locations ( same measurements to axle ends. Spring alignment tits are probably still there since there’s only 1 alignment pin on spring they can twist. Alignment shop will probably add a shim or two to front hangers. I’ve seen some so bad the air bags are crooked.Usually causing/ due to bent brackets.Air bag top brackets also have a bit of leeway in bolt holes if needed to make them look as straight as possible. I know half of what I said was already stated the other half you probably already knew Lol. Good Luck

 

I got to thinking about this today. Is there a chance you may have turned around one of the spring to axle blocks. If I remember right ( it’s been a while) they have a direction arrow maybe on the bottom?
Actually I may be thinking of the bottom plate, the dowel hole in the middle isn’t centered and there is a direction to them.
Either way I can remember the first time I ran accross it. Took me a while to figure out why the bushings wouldn’t line back up.

Lots and lots of cussing that day....