Rear axle moving back and sagging?

Joined
Dec 3, 2016
Messages
240
Location
Maine
1994 Dodge Caravan. I'm replacing the brake lines, and I need to move the van around every so often. I gently use the parking brake to stop after putting the van in neutral. Sometimes it drags the wheels to a stop. Here's the issue- every time I move it, the rear right wheel seems to move further back and the wheel looks like it's slightly turned and not straight. It's almost touching the bumper. I can't tell on the other side because there's a donut on it. Some online photos of these old base Caravans also look the the wheels are too far back, but this seems excessive.

But here's the pics. You can also see the bump stop on the right is much closer to the axle than the left side. The ground is pretty level where it's parked. I honestly can't tell what's going on. The shocks are junk, Im not sure if they affect height in a leaf spring setup or not.
 

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Maybe I'm wrong but that metal plate at the end of the leaf spring sure does look like the front spring mount/spring hangar has removed itself from the chassis. You can tell the axle has shifted backwards because the rust line on the shock rod.

Screenshot 2021-06-12 183808.png
 
This was the situation on my old Sienna, the wheel was tilting back against the shock absorber. I got a decent axle at the junkyard and installed that.

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The rust is not bad compared to most older cars here. It only has 80k and was parked for 8 years, I think I know why my gram parked it lol.
So here's the pics. I got eaten alive by mosquitoes so I hope they show what's needed.
Pic one: passenger leaf spring where the wheel is pushed back. Going up as normal.
20210612_203320_HDR.jpg


Here's the driver's side, you can see it's flat across-
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Here's the mounting area for that driver's side leaf spring-that bracket is still on the body but clearly not the springs.
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And the passenger
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Another close up of the driver's side. It doesn't look right, but there's no indication it was attached to anything else unless it was welded. Also if it was attached, it would hit the fuel sending unit under suspension compression, no? It's completely different from the passenger side.
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And finally the passenger side where the top is mounted. You can see bare metal next to it like it was Mickey Moused, but I know my grandmother wouldn't have bothered with having anything done. Both leaf springs have the big rubber mounts, the driver's side just isn't shown.
20210612_202656.jpg
 
I can tell cars that have been parked not running. They get a special "prickly" rust on everything underneath.

I hope this was free. Even with the "chip shortage" you can do a lot better for little money.

Leaf springs like to break at the ends-- I assume due to stresses from the loop forming process.
 
I can tell cars that have been parked not running. They get a special "prickly" rust on everything underneath.

I hope this was free. Even with the "chip shortage" you can do a lot better for little money.

Leaf springs like to break at the ends-- I assume due to stresses from the loop forming process.
You're right about that, definitely a different kind of rust. Well you'd think I would have noticed after being under it for countless hours. Yes it was free.
Edit:
WOW situational awareness award not going to me. There's no leaf spring attached to the mount on the passenger side, it's broken off. The drivers side also looks like one may have broken off and disappeared. What happened to the passenger side is someone pushed the springs up, and somehow welded it to the body instead of the mount. That would mean those springs are way, way too high on the right side. Both spring mounts are basically on the rocker panels. I guess she was into Mickey-Mousing.
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