I seem to recall the J3 only had bungee springs with certain floats? Of coarse I doubt if anyone would remove them when floats were taken off?
I remember we had a trim issue on the J5A-75 and I installed the upper bungee kit from Univair, wasn't fun to install but cured the problem. Final Piper designs like the PA22(maybe some PA18's?) had bungee springs both top and bottom.