The front suspension on the '64 is just about complete. I was loaned the coil spring compressor from the local auto parts house and promptly broke it. Not really my fault. The block was stressed and the threads on the bolt were already flat. Any of you ever make a spring compressor? I have a few ideas but they will be hit and miss until I find something that will work. Thanks for any help. Your friendly neighborhood Jarhead
[updated:LAST EDITED ON May-07-03 AT 12:26 PM (CST)]Hay, 71,, I can't answer your question about making a spring compressor, BUT... You can do the spring removal without a compressor. Need truck up on jack stands, (Duh!), and a good floor jack. Before starting, tie off the spring with a sturdy safty chain and secure it with an equally sturdy U bolt. Compress the spring by placing the floor jack under the a-arm of your choice and rais it up. Then, remove the cotter pin from the upper and lower ball joints and back the castle nuts off an inch or so. Don't remobe them yet! Then, S L O W L Y lower the floor jack. If the hub has not broken loose from the ball joint mounts, grab the mini-sledge and guve them a goo wack. The tension in the spring should break them loose with no problem. Then jack up the a-arm again, and remove the lower castle nut. Once again, S L O W L Y and CAREFULLY lower the jack until the lower a-arm falls free. The spring will then fall out after you remove the chain. Installation of the spring is a simple matter of positioning the spring in the upper pocket and, using the floor jack, raising the lower control arm up to compress the spring and mounting the hub on the ball joints. Get The Castle Nuts Back On FAST !! then use new cotter pins and she's done. DValentine
Hey, d. The springs are already out. Kinda funny, that. I was taking all of the nuts off the upper control arm and thought maybe I should move to the side just in case the spring let go in a violent manner. POW!! Guess I was right. We did the other side with the control arms secured until I had the nuts off and then let the pressure off s-l-o-w-l-y. Live and learn I guess. The shop manual I have shows a heavy duty compressor that the Chevy mechanics would have used. Much different than the one I borrowed.I may see what the local Chevy dealer uses for stuff like this. As a friend of mine says,"If you ain't bleedin', you ain't workin'!"
[updated:LAST EDITED ON May-07-03 AT 04:30 PM (CST)]99 % of the compressors you can rent are for struts. Completly worthless for our purposes. The compressor in the service manual was last seen on this planet about the same time that manual was printed ! When I was much younger, I saw a neighbor make that same mistake and let a spring have it's own way. Car was parked inside a garage. It exited it's mount in great haste on the left side, bounced off the wall, richoceted off the ceiling, hit the opposite wall, then the floor and bounced up and destroyed the "right" fender ! A perfectly executed four bank shot.... As you can imagine, everything it came in contact with was vaporized.... SCARY !!! DValentine
Bwahahaha. Bwahahaha. Well, guys(and wimmens if there are any out there), I am the proud owner of a complete front suspension. My idea for a coil spring compressor worked exactly how I thought it would. Two pieces of 1/2" steel plate 4"x16". Two lengths of hardened 5/8" all thread because they didn't have grade 8 bolts as long as I wanted. For all purposes, the all thread is grade 8. The nuts are grade 8. One bag of 5/8" washers just for kicks(only used a few). 5/8" holes drilled in each end of the plate about 3" from the outside edge and centered. One plate on top of a 2x4 block on top of the upper ball joint bolts and the other underneath the lower control arm and plumb. The kid on one rod and me on the other. We tried to compress at the same pace so as to get the same tension on both sides. It actually worked better than I had hoped. Spring went right down, no problems. Upper ball joint stud travelled right into it's hole in the spindle and away we went. The only issue was that as we started the process, we had to keep our foot against the lower plate because it wanted to travel because of the angle of the lower control arm. As soon as the lower control arm leveled out a little, the problem was moot. My father and I were critiqueing my engineering abilities and he thought that 3/8" plate would have worked fine. That may be true. I wanted absolutely NO flexing so I used the 1/2". I wanted ALL of the effort to go into the compression so we could focus on that. My 'kit' ended up costing me about $50. The plate was the most expensive part. It would have been about $30, but I had to buy a $20 drill bit. You may want to stick with 1/2" rod. You probably already HAVE bits up to 1/2". Save you some cash. *DISCLAIMER* This setup worked great for me. If you like this idea and want to use it, please do so and good luck. If you should have a failure and the spring flies out and destroys your garage and puts a dent in your skull, don't blame me. You are 100% on your own if you want to try this. PS: I love it when I'm right about something.
