Hello,
Well I have tubular A-Arms from Hawks and a set of Ebaich pro kit lowering springs, and getting these front springs in is really being a pain. Somehow we got the driver side spring with enough compressing and nudging, but the passenger side is being a little more finicky. I was just wondering if there were any tricks of the trade in gettin those springs in...Ive been working on that passenger spring for like 2 or 3 weekends and cant seem to get it in. I should have gone with coilovers!!! Thanks for the help...

Chris

what A arms do you have? PAracing/profab? Spohn?

How are you installing it? I just did spohn LCA and tubular k-member and put my global west springs back in (750 lbs/in) with a floor jack under the LCA using the weight of the car to compress the spring. I had to pry the arm around a little to get the bolts in but not that bad.

Do you have a spring compressor sure makes the job alot easier.
The old jack method is nice also, I like to use the jack method from the control arm bushing side not the ball joint side much easier getting the springs in at least for me that is.

dynodan

They are Spohn Tubular A-Arms for a LS1 tubular conversion Kmember.

I do have a spring compressor from autozone (which help but suck).

I am using the floor jack method, but It is hard to get the springs to set right before we jack them up. One of the problems is the spring is so thick that it is hitting the connecting bar of the a-arms (in other words the "-" part of the "A").

Edit:
Here are a couple pics of the A-Arms what it is like with the spring.

You should put the spring on the a-arm and jack that up into the k-member while the control arm is bolted to the knuckle. I had to use prybars to wiggle the arm around a little to get the bolt holes lined up, but no problems with spring hitting the "-" part of the a-arm.

Yea I can see where your getting at with putting the spring on the a-arm first then bolting the a-arm up to the kmember, but I had hard enough time getting the a-arms on the kmember regardless of a spring being there, so I am afraid to unbolt the a-arms from the kmember in the event that it will just cause more problems.

its the easiest way though, should go right in if you leave it attached to knuckle and take it loose from the k-member

Well I will try and fudge with it some more, but if that doesnt get me anywhere I will try that method. Is there anything thats easy with cars???

Do you have the motor in the car?

I did mine with the jack method. I had to muscle the arm around with prybars to get it in, but managed to do it by myself (my helper disappeared last weekend).

I just pulled one side of mine apart last nite to put in a spring spacer on top of the spring (my front end dropped about 3/4" after installing PA k-member and spohn arms) and used a modified spring compressor this time. Here is a link to a pic from another post. The spacer for the compressor is a 5" long 3/4" pipe nipple. I tried it and it worked great.

Link to post:

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...ing+%2Bsprings

link to pic of spacer:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tarami...ac.jpg&.src=ph

good luck

If you don't have the motor in you will never be able to compress the spring enough without lifting the car. What I did was put a jack under the a-arm and looped a chain underneath the jack an back up to the body with a couple of S hooks on each end of the chain. Works like a charm and took about 15 minutes.

no the motor is in the car...my problem is not not being able to compress the spring without the car raising it is getting the spring to seat correctly

Yea thats a nice spring compress you have Lo-tec...the ones i got are pieces of crap and dont even fit very well, but thats what i have to work with. You said your car dropped 3/4 of an inch with a tubular kmember? I would think it would raise due to being lighter?

So, what did you end up using?

FWIW, I’m with Tim on this… the only way to do 3rd gen springs is with the ball joint side assembled, jacking it all together and then putting the pivot bolts in. (mustangs work better the other way around).

FWIW#2, a long time ago, when we did the front springs on my ’83 we ran into the weirdness that we were not able to compress the front springs far enough to get them installed. Low Tech (Tim) had the idea to jack the opposite back corner of the car up as high as we could get it, and it shifted enough weight back over that it was easy to jack the spring/LCA into place.

With the stock arms, they go straight up with the spring on. With a tubular k-member, the arm has to go forward to clear the front tube, then be pulled back slightly to line up the bolt holes for the arm. This actually helps the spring line up with pocket better. You might want to try rotating the base of the spring around on the lower arm to get a better angle or fit on the upper pocket to get it started first. I would also see if you can rent the style of compressor in the picture. I installed the spacer on the other side of my car last night, again using the compressor, and it was again much easier than when I originally installed the springs with the jack.

As far as the drop in ride height, I think it has something to do with the spring pocket in the new k-member being a little higher up (not much). I removed the stock round .35" rubber spacer from the front and installed a rear spring spacer in its place. The rear spacer is a little over 1/2" thick, and even though the difference between the two is small, with just one side in it raised that side 1/2" and the opposite side 1/4". If you look at the geometrey of the front end (where the spring sits, LCA pivots, ball joint sits, etc) a small change in spring height will probably double the increase on ride height due to this.

Is that enough change for what you wanted? I’m pretty sure that I got about an inch doing the same on my 83. like I mentioned in email, the 4th gen ones are about 1.5-2x as thick and cast of some stiffer plastic/poly so that would be the answer if you needed more.

92CamaroLS1, any success with the springs?

83 Crossfire TA, spacers ended up giving me an extra 1/2" after driving it and letting everything settle.

lo tec, you have a spohn k member i didnt think they were out yet

I fuged around with them a little saturday but didnt work, and I didnt get to work on the car today. I have to wait until next weekend because I have to go back to college from monday to saturday. I wish i had more time to work on the car, it woulda been done by now ...Ill probably do it next sunday, after having an 8:30 am to 12:30 pm chemistry class on saturday morning I dont really feel like doing anything strenuous when I get home. Ill let ya know how it goes...thanks for the help

Spohn lower control arms and PA racing k-member

I just put in 12 inch 925lb front springs with new PA tubular a-arms and both sides went in very easy. Only thing I see differant, my springs are ground flat on one side. I put the flat side up in the tower the used a jack to compress them.

Just to update, I was able to get the spring in today. I didnt need to take the A-Arms off just needed to adjust the spring compressor some and play around with. It went in relatively easy for some reason and actually did it by myself. Just little stuff left until the cars out on the road. Thanks for the help.

Chris

Congrats.. i was hopin to get my front end together but I ran into the same problem as i thought they would just slide in easy.. it wont go in at all with those spohn arms... apparently we lack the technology of spring compressors in canada as I couldnt find any in this little town and drove 2 hours back to my city and alas not a single one in any part stores.. just goes to say you better be prepared when you try and tackle this crap.. and i feel money woulda been better spent elsewhere and just went with the stock k-member conversion mounts instead of almost 2k$ on front end crap

i did get the k-member in and the arms on.. thats a pretty tricky challenge in itself