***Important Update - December 2024

***For the last 8 years BCC has been providing quality British made leaf springs for classic cars designed and manufactured in Sheffield made from British steel.

 These springs have always been a premium product handmade to order and consequently expensive, but we are now finding it increasingly difficult to maintain our range due to problems of supply of spring steel.

 Back in the days when most cars had leaf springs the volume of steel being cast and rolled was high and spring designers could achieve the ride and spring performance they wanted by using multiple combinations of leaves at different thickness to achieve the desired spring rate.

 it was common for springs to have leaves that varied in thickness from 3/16^th , ¼, 5/16^th etc, very small changes which when multiplied by the number of leaves can make a difference.

 All these springs were made in imperial gauge not only in thickness but in width, and none of the mills producing spring steel are now rolling imperial sizes to stock.

 The rolling Mills are now asking for 6 tonnes as a minimum order quantity to roll to a custom size, the commercial reality is that is too many springs for the number of available cars.

 Where we can we use a metric gauge that is available from stock; ¼ inch is close to 6mm but not exact, 50 mm is close to inch but not exact. Sometimes this doesn’t matter but on occasions it causes clearance issues, or it means that to achieve the correct original spring rate we must make the spring with a different number of leaves compared to the original, it will have the correct rate and performance but it’s not going to please people restoring that want perfect originality.

 The mills are also not geared up to roll to the finesse of the original imperial gauges, it is simply too thin compared to any applications for spring steel on modern vehicles, the remaining applications are typically commercial vehicles and rail.

 So, as we cannot easily get the thicknesses or width used in the older classic cars we must resort to milling the steel from stock metric sizes.

 It’s not as expensive to mill down the width but it does leave an inferior product; when the spring steel is milled to a specified width it has a bevelled edge, if we mill it to size it loses the bevel and it looks wrong to do this on just one side but adds more cost to do both. Not ideal.

 This is a national problem, not unique to us and will affect anyone making springs in the UK. Where we have sufficient imperial stock, we will be able to continue, and the price may not vary too much but some will double in price due to the amount of machining that is required.

 BCC Leaf Springs are made from British steel and are manufactured to an exact standard using an ISO 9001 quality control system to ensure the production processes for forming, tapering, eye rolling and tempering each spring are done to a consistently high standard.

Replacing the leaf springs on your classic vehicle can be one of the most significant and beneficial purchases you make. Here at BCC we are aware of the wide range of choices the customer has from various different suppliers. Based on our experience of the market, and our customers experiences, BCC will only supply springs that comply, as best possible, with OEM specifications or better and have a track record of successful fitment with previous customers.

We manufacture leaf springs that are as close to the manufacturers original specification as we can, we use the correct imperial gauge steel sizes whenever possible whilst matching the interleaving and fixings as best possible. Some detail can sometimes be lost over time so we are always open to information from marque experts.

Please note that manufacturers sometimes altered the spring specifications between similar models, for instance the ‘L’ and the ‘GL’ model of an otherwise identical car may have springs with different rates to give a smoother more luxurious ride, conversely export cars often had tougher springs to cope with rougher roads.

The springs on your car may not be the originals, a lot can happen in 50 or 60 years, and so our listing may differ from the springs you have on your car. It is therefore important to try to give us as much information as you can; the year of manufacture (not always the same as the date of first registration) the model designation and variant, e.g. Mk2 Escort Estate GL are all important but if it is available any information from the owner’s manual or parts book for the original part number or the spring rate will be ideal, but failing that the number of leaves and the approximate spring width, will help us to identify the correct spring.

If you are in any doubt as to the originality of your current springs you can seek further confirmation with BCC by requesting a leaf spring check sheet on which they can fill out basic dimensions and features such as number of leafs, leaf thickness, camber height, mounting point pitches etc.

Your order confirmation from BCC will include basic dimensional information on the spring you have ordered allowing you to check against the springs you are replacing.