Wow, glad to find the forum...

[KeepItRunning]

  My 82 Concord DL was supposed to be a project car but has been pressed into duty. It needs some TLC so I just give it another quart of oil with each fill up. It doesn't burn oil just needs the valve cover replaced.
My most desperate need (one of many but this is the most desperate) is the pads for the flippin' leaf spring. Replaced both leaf springs but the pads holding the spring in place are flaking away. Any hints how to buy, fabricate or use something similar to hold the axle and spring together? I tried 3/4" hard rubber pads on top and bottom but the axle on the passenger side is slipping and beginning to rub the wheel well.

Thanks!

[doc65]

Hmm, Pics would be useful here.  I first thought you were referring to the wear pads between the leaves, but on reading further I assume that you mean the steep piece that goes over or under the axle & the U bolts go thru after they loop around the axle housing.  Sorry I haven't been under a Concord, but if it's the piece I'm thinking of you could make it in a few minutes with a torch or plasma cutter & a chunk of 4" channel or box tubing to cut up. or you could likely pull one off a junkyard Cherokee, YJ, Exploder(though that one would again need the shock mounts torched off) etc...

[IowaEagle]

Welcome to the Nest.  Of course pictures of your Concord would be nice too.

[txjeeptx]

I'm no expert on Concords, but there shouldn't be any rubber between the leaf springs and the axle's steel spring perches. That was a GM/Camaro thing. Maybe someone thought they'd swap in some GM leaf spring rubber mounts to try to soften the ride, or is there something special about the way AMC mounted the axles in their 2wd cars? I know its spring-under-the-axle, where Eagles are springover, but there shouldn't be any rubber in there. The pin that holds the leaves together should locate itself in a hole in the spring perch on the axle, and there should be no rubber in between the axle and the spring.

Maybe the axle was swapped from a GM car, rubber pads and all? Then the rear wheels would have a different bolt pattern than the front, still 5-lugs, but larger bolt circle.

We need pics to figure out what's going on there. If you know its a Concord axle for sure, then you could try doing away with the rubber and mount it the way I'm pretty sure it was suppsed to mount - no rubber. If the u-bolt plate is rusting/crumbling away, you could get away with using replacements from a Jeep YJ, since it shared axle diameter and leaf spring width, with the Eagle, at least. Here's a link with a picture of the YJ rear spring plate.http://www.quadratec.com/products/56008_06.htm

[Ohio AMX]

I changed the springs in my Concord wagon last summer (on a 100 degree day!). It does have rubber pads between the spring and the perch on top, and the shock mount down below. I know the cushions are original since they have an oval part which fits into a matching hole to keep them in place. The cushions were so embedded with rust scale I had to bead blast then to clean them up.

[mudkicker715]

Did leafs on my concord. yup rubber pads

[carnuck]

Iso pad style axles SUCK! I would cut the spring pads off the axle, weld new ones on (you can make your own with a torch and channel steel the same width as your leaf springs) and get new U-bolts and a shock plate from an XJ or MJ to replace it.

[doc65]

You won't find "shock plates" on an XJ, got 4 of them(XJ's) in the driveway right now and have owned like 4 others, the shocks mount to a drop bracket that's welded to the axle tube, front on one side, rear on the other.  I can't speak to the MJ, bot those plates do look a lot like the ones under the exploder I pulled an 8.8" out of a couple months ago...

[carnuck]

Must be MJ and FSJ then. Been awhile (2 years) since I SOA'd my MJ.

[txjeeptx]

MJ rear has shock mount plates, so do full size Dodge pickups and vans from before the mid 90's. YJ front axles has swaybar mount plates that could be used as shock mounts.

Ohio AMC thanks for the pics, they're forever burned into my memory now - that's how the Concord axle is mounted, and I'd have never known. Hmmm, so I guess KennedyAmerican might have those rubber pieces?

Otherwise, you'll have to modify the existing axle to get rid of the rubber-isolator stlye mounts. Maybe swap in an XJ axle housing, whole, even though it would require moving the spring perches to under the axle? If you need new u-bolt spring plates, you might have trouble finding some that accomodate that style of shock mount. I wonder if you could just do away with the rubber and solid mount the housing.

[doc65]

I wonder if you could just do away with the rubber and solid mount the housing.

You might be onto something there, that upside down U piece that surrounds the upper rubber looks like it comes off, might be able to pull that and the lower rubber, I think you'd likely need shorter U bolts, and it would likely loose about 1/4" to 1/2" of height(what ever the thickness of the upper rubber & bracket is)

[doc65]

Dave,

Are you sure about that on the axle width?  Someone else put an XJ axle in an Eagle recently and his measurements put the (D35 I think, though could have been an 8.25) at 1/8" NARROWER WMS to WMS than the Eagle.  I know for a fact that the Ford 8.8" out of an Explorer and Ranger as well as the Mazda & Merc. equivalents is 5/8" narrower than an XJ/MZ/ZJ/TJ as I've done that swap into an XJ and a ZJ personally, and have read for years that the MJ/TJ are the same axle dimensions excluding mounting hardware(MJ D44 is probably the second most sought after axle in XJ circles right behind factory XJ D44 cuz all you need to do is grind out the weld on the spring perches move them to the top & re-weld).

Just trying to know what it's going to take to swap this axle before hand without going & pulling the wheels & measuring WMS<->WMS myself. as I just picked up a doner XJ yesterday for my full 4.0 swap, and it has the 3.08 D35 that I was planning on putting under the Eagle whole other than the shock mounts...

Doc

[Ohio AMX]

I wonder if you could just do away with the rubber and solid mount the housing.

You might be onto something there, that upside down U piece that surrounds the upper rubber looks like it comes off, might be able to pull that and the lower rubber, I think you'd likely need shorter U bolts, and it would likely loose about 1/4" to 1/2" of height(what ever the thickness of the upper rubber & bracket is)

Get rid of the rubber cushions? That's what makes a Concord ride like a Caddy! 

[HappyPappy]

  Here is a thought, if you want the rubber to stay, get a piece of recap or tread from a tire, can find them for free along the highways of America, cut it down to fit the pads, drill your pilot holes and install in place of the old pads, or remove them completey, you'll probably need shorter u-bolt though.

That's how I'd deal with it, like mentioned before, make sure your center bolts are all there, not rusted away.

[KeepItRunning]

You guys are incredible!! It turned out the pin going through the spring had rusted away and the mount was slipping. I put a bolt through it and it's doing fine.

Ohio AMX, thanks for posting the pic. I could see where your plate was bending. Both my rear plates are cracked. I ended up putting steel bars across the plates and it has worked but I'm not sure for how long. I thought about fabricating but I need a tongue to hold the shock. I saw some fabricated plates for an old mustang that looked very similar but I need to make some measurements.

My latest issue is getting the darn thing to idle. Fine on the highway but misses badly when idling. Replaced the ignition pack plus dist rotor and cap which helped. Plugs are about 1.5 years old and plug wire set about 5 years old. Any thoughts?

I'll see about posting my own pics soon.