Rear Leaf Spring Removal Help Needed

[Baketown Scotty]

1966 GMC Suburban 4WD

I’m having a hard time removing the spring eye pins from the front and rear hangers. I got the shackle retaining pins out but the spring eye pins are not moving. One option I would rather not do would be to grind/ cut the rivets and remove the hangers, then mayb use a press to get them out. Any words of wisdom would be appreciated. Thank you.

[Getter-Done]

Are these 48-52 springs?

[Baketown Scotty]

Trying to get pictures up right

[Baketown Scotty]

From hanger to hanger they are 52”

[Baketown Scotty]

More like 50” in a straight line.

[Getter-Done]

If you remove the Grease fitting and Then (relief drill) the pins.

Then you will have a Fresh start.

You can then decide if you want to change the hangers.

[Richard]

Had to cut off shackle bolts with a cutoff wheel on my 72 because they were rusted in place. Heat would not have helped much because of the rubber. If I was in your situation with the older truck and solid bushings. I would remove the nuts and zerk fitiings, heat the outside of shackle until red and pound the bolt out with a drift. Heat will work. Recently got some hinge pins out of a 62 VW van door using this method. Was pretty quick. Watched some videos of people using expensive tools to remove the hinge pins with no success. The tool broke in one video. Obviously, there should be no weight on the joint while doing this.

[Baketown Scotty]

Thanks for the help. I’ll get back to it. Is there a reason I would want to change the hangers?

[Richard]

The bushings in the spring and shackle should move freely on the bolts. If the bolts are frozen up to the bushings they will move in the hangers. This can wallow out the mounting holes.

[Baketown Scotty]

A little heat and a BFH did the trick. Probably could have used more heat. The four pins on the bottom are from the rear springs. The bracket on top is from the rear of the front hanger which I have not removed yet. Not sure if it is threaded all the way through or not?