Question about using full-width axle spring plates

[olllllo]

I am in the middle of a 3/4 ton axle swap and am wondering if I need to mod my spring plates. The donor truck used 3" springs so there is a gap between the edge of the springs and the ubolt with the stock waggy springs. is this anything I need to worry or should it be OK as long as there are clamps on the spring pack to keep it together?

[Tigger4X]

There are solid engineering reasons why the spring perches are as wide as the springs and the u-bolts as well. You start mismatching that stuff and things get all slippery and get cockeyed. Iffin you dont get hurt yer for sure heading for a nasty case of :banghead:

[Tad]

It might not be that big a deal but I have not really paid a lot of attention the the 78-79 F250 front axles since I am passenger drop front.
Plenty of folks here (Michael, Blake, SlickWillie, etc.) running the Ford HD44's and D60's, hopefully they will chime in since I sure don't recall that being an issue.

[Tad]

Take a look at Blake's "Goofy" build (should be the same axle):
http://www.ifsja.org/forums/vb/showthread.php?t=137512
On page one there are some pretty good pic's of the front springs/spring plates, also some mention of grinding the housing a little to make one of the u-bolts fit better.
That looks fine to me, if your setup looks similar I wouldn't worry about it once everything is in place and torqued properly.

[olllllo]

Thanks for the input as always Tad. For what it is worth, I talked to a place that has made custom springs and leaf pack ubolts for many years here in Dallas (http://twsprings.com/) and they recommend not leaving a gap due to the fact that as you torque that you can bend the plate a little bit which in turn can make it easier for the nuts to back off later. He recommended at least slotting the hole a little to bring the ubolt toward the spring a bit.

[Tad]

Do you have enough room on the perch to slot the spring plate?
It's a little hard to tell from your other pic here...
http://dshuck.jeep.s3.amazonaws.com/wagoneer/axleswap/IMAG0229.800x600.jpg
...how wide the perch is.
If the perch is 3" wide I don't see you moving the u-bolts in closer.
I'm sure there are other answers to this also.

[olllllo]

I think I have decided to use the stock front plates for now which alleviate this consideration as the ubolt actually comes up and over the spring with the plate on the bottom. Since the spring plate is firmly pressed against the axle at all points, there is no chance of it bending. My concern still exists for the rear spring plates, but I am thinking about slotting the holes slightly to move the ubolts inward a bit.