Springs

The springs on my late-war GPW should have 10 leaves in the front and 11 in the rear. What came on this jeep when purchased was a mishmash of leaves, mostly Willys, and some odd shaped spring keepers. There was a large amount of jeep lean. In 2016 when I bought my replacement springs, no one was making GPW style springs, and the reproduction springs by Crown and Omix do not look like high quality pieces. All reports state that these repro springs sag after a few years and that the metal quality is very poor.

The only place I could find USA-made high quality springs was from Walcks. They make a 10 leaf front but only nine leaf rears. The nice folks there, however, were able to add an extra leaf to the rear, giving me 10 in both front and rear. $600 shipped for a full set seemed very reasonable.

Here are the springs as purchased both front and rear. The springs are generic and certainly do not look the part of GPW springs.  I may change the keepers on them later, but nothing will ever make them look correct for a GPW, short of grinding the corners and beveling each leaf along its full edge. As I mentioned, though, I much prefer high quality, a good ride, and no jeep lean to the poor repro parts. Who knows, someday maybe Joe’s Motor Pool will take on the challenge of reproducing GPW springs. Or maybe I’ll get up the courage to re-arch the correct GPW springs that I have from 107810. They’re 8 and 9 leaf, though.

Here they are with a lick of primer on them. They’ve since been painted OD and are ready to install.