I have read alot of posts on the is board that have said it is paossible, if not easy, to change the front springs with a spring compressor. I am having some problems and need your help.

I am in the process of replacing the 'wear' items on the front of my car. Specifically the steering gear, springs and shocks. I currently have removed the following parts: tie rods/centerlink/idler arm, sway bar, front rotor/hub, and strut (so far I have just removed the left side, I was hoping to do one side at a time).

Here's my problem, I can't get the spring out. When I took the strut off I had a jack under the control arm holding it in place. After the strut was off I lowered the jack thinking the spring would come out as the control arm rotated down and away. The problem is the very end of spring appears to be stuck in pocket on the control arm. The more the control arm swings down, the more the spring starts to 'bow' (with the inner side of the spring compressing and the outer side expanding). The bottom coil is loose and pulls away from the pocket on the outside (toward the fender), but the end of the spring (inside, toward the motor) doesn't move at all. It's almost like it is jammed in the pocket of the arm. I tried prying a little on the spring, but thought better of that pretty quickly when I realized that it will hurt if that spring 'jumps' out of the pocket suddenly.

The Chilton manual I have recommends compressing the spring with an 'inner' spring compressor, removing the control arm pivot bolts, and dropping the entire control arm off the car. Do I need to get a spring compressor and remove the control arm to remove the spring?

I don't know if any of that makes sense, and I wish I would have taken some pics but I didn't think of that until this morning.

Any help, suggestions, tips, pictures, etc, etc ,etc would be greatly appreciated.

 

I didn't use a spring compressor. I let the control arm hang and jacked the car up as high as needed to take as much tension as possible off of the spring. I then used about a 4 foot long crow bar to pry up on the bottom of the spring to make it pop out. I stood out of the path of the spring in case it did fly out! THIS IS DANGEROUS! I'm sure all springs are different, but mine didn't fly out and kill anyone. They just popped and fell out. Mine looked scary when it was compressed on one side, but they didn't have anywhere near the amount of tension I thought they would. THIS IS JUST MY EXPERIENCE! I AM CRAZY! I COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED! Use a spring compressor. Hope this helps!

I'm guessing that you have unbolted the end links. If not, you will need to if you decide to risk you life and use a crow bar. I couldn't find a spring compressor anywhere that would work on a camaro.

 

I was able to get mine out by disconecting the sway bar, and brake line from the strut. Then I put a jack under the a arm and disconected the strut at the top. Be carefull though the strut will fall outward and could hit the lip of the fender or you. My springs just poped out that way. If it still will not come out I would secure them wit a chain and then push on your a arm to get them out, but be careful I have read of people getting hurt by not properly secure the spring. I would tell you to use a spring compressor but I am having no luck using one to get my springs back in they are to bulky and just get in the way.

 

I don't know how anyone could ever get a stock spring back in without a spring compressor. It took two of us to get a much shorter dropzone spring back in using the crow bar method. I tried to use a spring compressor to get the dropzones in, but quickly gave up. I had my neighbor pry up on the spring while I pushed it in to the pocket. Worked like a charm, but there's no way that could be done with a stock spring!

sjc115- Will you be putting stock springs back in or lowering springs?

 

Reconnect the strut, chain the bottom of the spring through the a-arm, jack under the a-arm spring pocket, and remove the two control arm bolts. You will have to jack on the arm to remove the tension on the bolts. Lower the arm slowly, and remove the spring.

 

I am putting in a set of Moog Iroc Springs (5662). They look like they are shorter than what in there, but it's tought to tell without having the old one out yet.

 

If the spring is stuck in the a-arm pocket - did you check to see if there was an abundance of rust or other "stuff" that could be inpeeding it? When I did my front springs, (stock with 140K on them) there was rust and all kinds of stuff in there - pry bar was the only way to get it to move with a little oil. Lot-ech's method is one of the safer methods to pull the front springs. I had to have my new lowering springs "banded" to get then to seat properly in the top pocket, while making sure that the bottom of the spring remained properly index in the lower a-arm...
Make sure you have ample room to swing you a-arm out of the way - edmiller88 has a great weblink that illustrates the process. Take a look there (brake board)
Centre style spring compressor was nothing short of a PIA....
-Andrew

 

Lo-tec is on the right track here, you wanna make sure you chain the spring to the car before removing or installing it. This will prevent it from flying out of the pocket and hitting someone or causing damage. When you're under the car you can see a spot in the k-member to loop a chain through and then loop around one of the spring coils. I use a chain and then a bolt with 2 washers and a nut on the end. Loop it around a spring coil in the middle of the spring and through the hole in the k-member and make it tight. Here is a picture to help you out:



Now that you know you're not gonna get hit in the face with a spring its much easier to manhandle this thing and get it apart and back together. When removing the spring the same thing happened to me, the a-arm swings down and the stock height spring is still stuck on the lip. Here's a pic:



What I do is wrap a rag around one of the coils and smack it a few good times with a rubber mallet or softly with a hammer, hit it horizontally (toward the front of the car for example) the spring will un-seat but it wont fly out with the safety chain attached. When putting it back in I learned this trick, place the spring up in the k-member pocket, place the a-arm under the spring and put the floorjack under the a-arm. Now line up the balljoint stud on the a-arm and begin to thread on the balljoint stud but dont tighten all the way. Use the floorjack to raise the rear of the a-arm up to the k-member to attach the two a-arm bolts, when it gets close you use a screwdriver to line up the holes. With the balljoint stud threaded everything will pivot on the balljoint and you can do the install without a compressor. With the safety chain attached you dont have to worry about being hurt when manhandling the a-arm with a screwdriver and the spring is loaded. I've re-installed stock springs with no compressor using this method. Make sure you index it properly.

 

Good News, I got the left side done last night (did not have time to do the right side). I used a combination of suggestions that everybody provided, so thank you all for the help!

Here's how I did it.
First off I tried the inside compressor (the type with 4 hooks is all I could find), but it was too long and I had no luck what-so-ever with it.

So, I decided to try a combination of techniques. I put a chain through the spring for safety and then did the following.
I let the arm start to come down until the spring just started to bow from being stuck. I then raised the arm back up a little bit and used one outside spring compressor on the side of the spring closest to the fender. I tightened the compressor just enough to hold the spring from expanding any more. Next, I let the control arm down slowly. All but the very end of the spring was out of the pocket. I moved under the car so that I would be out of the way. Reaching in with a pry bar, I put a little pressure on the base of the spring and, POP, it came right out.

Putting in the new spring was easy since it is about 3 inches shorter than the old one. Everything else - strut, rotor, etc - went back on easily. I don't even have the car on the ground yet, but I can already tell it is going to be MUCH MUCH stiffer.

The old strut is soft as butter compared to the Koni. I can't wait until the next Autocross! Hopefully that wicked body roll will be a thing of the past.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions!