Bus Conversion: Re-setting the Springs

We had quite a hold up with the springs. To get the bus ready for registration, one of the major jobs we needed to do was to get the back springs reset and altered to a single stage unit. The vehicle prior to having the springs re set, it was quite bouncy & had quite a lean in it especially going around corners and round-abouts.

Sample Springs

The bus originally came with a 2 staged springs system, which never worked properly. In fact they don't use them anymore. It was an idea that never really took off. We decided to do the front springs at the same time and install 2 new back shock absorbers too.

For an old bus, this was really all that was needed to be fixed in order to pass rego.

This is one of our springs before it was repaired - note the rubber against the axle and the bending up of the springs

At first the 'spring chappie' was stating that he can't do anything with them. He was hindered because Mitsubishi are not forthcoming with ANY technical details. We did have to convince him to work on our bus. Because our vehicle is what they call a 'grey import' and there was no specifications or part numbers to work from, it was certainly more challenging for them. We found that Mitsubishi Australia were totally unhelpful and will not have anything to do with grey imports even of their own Japanese counterparts, Mitsubishi Japan!

The repaired Spring - note the distance of the rubber from the axle for starters

The spring chappie ended up saying that it was not as hard as he originally thought. We ended up having them re-tensioned (I that is the right terminology)
“Grey import” is the term given to cars that are second hand vehicles imported and sold in Australia even though they wear familiar badges from Mitsubishi, Toyota, Nissan, Honda and others. Maybe they are called "Grey Imports" because they fall into a grey area when it comes to getting them fixed.

Now that is done, we should be able to go ahead and get it insured and registered.