TL;DR - I had to cut my trip short when another leaf - this time the main leaf - broke on the first day of a 4 day adventure. I've now replaced the leaf springs, solving the problem.
For the second time in six months, a leaf spring broke. In fact, a second leaf - this time the main leaf, and the only one that spans from the front hanger to the rear shackle - broke from the same leaf pack, and in the same location as the first leaf that'd broken.
Obviously there must have been some sort of irregular stress in this location, since two leafs broke in exactly the same place.
The situation this time was a bit more dire, but we were lucky that a jerry-rigged-ratchet-strap-bush-fix was able to keep the rear axle from sliding out from under the truck, eventually making it all the way home before I quickly replaced the leaf springs with another brand new leaf pack from Alcan Spring.
I'd planned to do this at the same time that I replaced the rear axle housing with a new fabricated Diamond Axle housing, but apparently that was the wrong call. At any rate, problem solved.
Hopefully this set doesn't break (the previous set were Alcan's as well), and provides support for years to come.
I'll also be adding a couple plates and some grade 10.9 bolts to the OSK (Oh Shit Kit) so that should something like this happen in the future, I can apply a bit more robust repair. I really like this solution because it's not heavy - especially compared to carrying a full leaf, for instance - but is quite effective.
A clever solution to a broken leaf spring.
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