Broken leaf spring, pics, 1997 F-150 XLT Supercab
 

Hi, I'm sharing some pics of a broken leaf spring off my 1997 F-150 XLT. The repair/replacement is on progress - I think I've found a couple options now - just need to place the order.

In the mean time, I thought I'd share these here. After you see them, let me know if that's a natural break in the metal leaf, or if you think I need to call a cop :)

The pics, left to right:
Doug

[Edit]BTW, this happened on the Sam Rayburn tollway in the Dallas area yesterday. I heard a loud clunk, and when I heard it again, it seemed to coincide with braking, so I assumed it was something gone wonky in my right rear drum. Needless to say, when I got it jacked up in the driveway last night, I was shocked to see this - I'm lucky I didn't end up in a wreck. Fortunately, the forward section of the spring swung up against the frame rail, and the lower section was pushing up against that. The rear section of the spring provided enough control over the axle that it didn't not swing forward or aft - at least not enough to adversely affect driving.

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That looks like something that has been bad for quite a while - look at the corrosion almost all the way across that break. It finally cracked all the way through and broke.

Yes, that's what I'm thinking. It appears to me that ~ 70% of the cross sectional area was already separated.

What gets me is that the corroded area is unnaturally straight, as if it was some sort of factory flaw (or sabotage :)). I would expect to see a less perfect, more jagged seam if the break was due to over stress.

I bought a set of springs from Rockauto today. I expect they'll be next weekend's project :)

But I am curious, if anyone here has had to replace a broken spring, what were the characteristics of the breaks? Jagged? Smooth? Straight? Crooked?

In short, is such a straight line, as seen in my pics, common when a leaf spring breaks?

Thx.

Doug

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