The last time we rebuilt the front-end on my '88 Camaro, we rented from Autozone these spider-looking compressors that consisted of a long bolt with two hooks at each end of the bolt, and then a nut on the end to compress the sets of hooks together. We were never able to actually compress the springs enough to get them out of the car and, ultimately, we had to just forget about compressing the springs. We ended up putting a jack under each A-frame, releasing the strut, and then gradually lowering the A-frame to the ground. Putting the springs back was even more of a PITA, because we were forced to use the compressor, and we also had to make our own spacers to make it compress enough. We ended up having to use the impact wrench to torque the nut to compress the spring. To make matters worse, without warning, the hooks on the compressor could release, causing the spring to decompress all at once. Scared the hell out of me--surprised I didn't loose an arm! I think that must have happened almost ten times before we got it it.

Now, we're wanting to rebuild the front end on my IROC, and that's going to have even tougher springs. So, I'm wondering if any of you might have some suggestions about this. Are there any tricks to compressing these things? Should I be using a different type of compressor?

I appreciate any suggestions...

Thanks

 

You could try something like this...

 

Roughly

 

I used the autozone compressor but had to use a 5" pipe nipple to make it work. I got the nipple at Home Depot for about a buck.

 

That's what I did.

Except I cut my own outta some old pipe I had layin' around.

I haven't used one on my car yet. I used it on my '83 Chevy 1/2ton 2wd. That's even more dangerous of a job IMO. I had to remove the 2 U-bots that hold the lower control arms to the frame. That was a '1 spring-per-night' job

AJ

 

A tip on using the spring compressor, make sure you are compressing as many coils as possible. You will have to get the top hooks of the compressor far up in the spring pocket were you can't see in order to get the springs out. Look at the first pic posted by urbman. To make life easier get the top hooks up another coil or as close to the top as possible. If you don't, the coils you don't have hooked will uncompress as you compress the rest of the spring and make it harder to remove. Took me two days to get mine out. An imact wrench made it easier, just don't round off the compressor bolt. Bets of luck with it.

 

I used the jack trick you mentioned in the first post and also cut down and modified the autozone compressor to work. To put them back in, I jacked the A-arm and compressed it with my impact wrench and then repeated about a dozen times.

Big pain in the *** just to change motor mounts.

SB

 

Drop the a-arm, insert the spring, raise the a-arm with a jack. Its not hard, its not dangerous. Its easy, and you dont need a stupid tool.

 

Not as big as trying to do it with the control arm in the way.

 

Agreed. You can only drop so many nuts into the crossmember before it isnt fun anymore.

SB

 

Try looping a long, heavy-duty chain thru the a-arm, coil spring and the top of the crossmember a couple of times, don't even have to attach it anywhere. If you have enough chain, even if the spring WERE to pop loose, it's not going anywhere.

I definitely agree having done it, how easy it was. Lift the front of the car at least a couple of feet above normal, gives you more than enough room to lower the a-arm all the way down with a jack and just yank the spring out of the pocket. Sometimes putting it back in requires creative use of a pry bar!

Good luck!

 

LMAO!!!! I hate it when I drop my nuts!!!!

That's funny though. Mainly 'cause you've touched on the truth. The first time crap like that happens, you think "Man I gotta hold onto that sucker". Then after the 3rd one you start throwing wrenches, then take the time to figure out what can be done to stop it.

As you get older you'll learn that you should at least
STOP THROWING WRENCHES!!!

AJ

 

I knew as soon as I typed my message, someone would make the nut joke.

SB

 

Home Depot's carrying nipples? Damn, they really DO have everything in there!

I'm surprised nobody picked up on THAT joke.

So the purpose of urbman's and ebmiller's modification was to get the "lower" hook to grab something? Why couldn't the hook have been flipped "upside down"? I like the metal plate idea, though.

 

Depends on how long the spring is. I've done Guldstrand front springs & Eibachs w/ out my compressor, but others required it...:lala:

 

I've never used a spring compressor on mine.
My springs are so short now, that I can put the spring in,lift up the A-arm and attach the ball-joint by hand.
-Rich-

 

The reason I did it was the bolt was hitting the spring pod that's attached to the frame. It got really hard to turn. All it did was made the 'usable' part of the bolt shorter, same as cutting the bolt on the other end. But this way I slid the nipple off, and got my money back from AutoZone.

AJ