The International Cessna^® 170 Association

I had to replace some of my springs a number of years ago due to a deep wear mark across the spring. Spruce sent me a bundle of springs . [with paper work] . My 170A has the original steel bracket that attaches to the fuselage . When I pulled my springs apart that rubber block was toast . I didn’t have the catalogue handi ,plus it’s not a reference on maintenance or assembly. My 1962 “service manual” doesn’t even mention tail wheels for 170,s. I used rubber sheeting off baffles to replace the unobtainable rubber insert.
That was 10 years ago and about 1200 landings and all going well. Plus I have scared myself a number of times the places I have dropped the old girl into . However I do spray WD-40 onto the springs to keep rust away . Plus after each day at the beach I will pump the tail wheel bearing and swivel joint with aero /boat grease [blue].

The '48 170 tailwheel set up looks very similar to the 120/140 series. In the 120/140's, that bushing is indeed rubber. When we rebuilt the spring stack on my 120, we ended up using a small piece of rubber 3/8" ID fuel line for the bushing. I hope this helps.