1961 Rear Leaf Spring Installation

[baccus06]

I am working on installing new rear suspension on the '61 hard top. You can see on the old spring it appears to be 6 leaf with no bottom pad. My new ones are 4 leaf since that seems to be the most consistent that I found for the '61 HT. I am using 2 insulator pads on the new springs but the pad retainer is too narrow so it does not fit the new insulator. Does that retainer need to be there or should it be removed? If it is needed should I get replacements?

[bbogue]

As I recall from overhauling the rear suspension on my 61 years ago, the pads and retainers for 61 were a 1 year design, much smaller than 62-63. I converted to the beefier 62-63 design, obtaining the required salvaged hard parts from a northwest US TBird supplier.
Best of luck.

Bill