Front coil spring compressor?

[pritch]

I've recently been putting my front end back together, drop spindles, disc brakes, new coils, the whole thing. I had a dickens of a time compressing my coils. I built this tool:



That is a 3/4" threaded rod and 2 pieces of half inch plate. This is one of my old springs, I didn't take any pictures of doing the new ones. I would like to say it worked well, but all I can say is that it kinda worked. If I took what I learned and built a new one, I would have put some twist in the top steel plate to match the angle of the coil a little better and used left-handed threaded rod so it would get tighter instead of wanting to un-wind it's way down the spring and get looser. As much as I could compress the spring, it still wasn't enough and I had to use a bar clamp between the control arms to get the last little bit so I could get the ball joint nuts to start.
So I did get everything together and I was pretty happy.

Then it was pointed out that I had the bolts upside down in the upper ball joints. The bolts are supposed to be head down, instead of head up.

The shop mechanic at my work had offered to let me use his coil spring compressor tool before hand, so I decided to take him up and this is what he has:



I didn't see a brand name, but I assume this is a good tool. He's the kind of guy that would sooner set fire to a dollar bill as to give it to Harbor Freight.

The problem was that there is no way this would work. It's waaaay to long. I took it apart and made some shorter threaded rods for it:



This was better. This worked for what I was doing. I just needed to hold the springs, just compress enough to relieve the pressure off the ball joint:



I still couldn't compress the spring completely enough, so I still had to finish it with the trusty bar clamp. With this tool this short, there is no way I could have even come close to starting from scratch. No way I could have opened it enough to release the tension on the spring.

But now it's all back together and life is good, but I'm left wondering what is the proper tool to use for this operation?

[mclairmo]

Harbor Freight carries the proper inside coil spring compressor for cheap. You can also rent them fro free at Autozone I believe. I've used them and they work well and are safe to use. Just be sure to avoid the 2 piece outside McPherson strut type coil spring compressor that you see more commonly.

[Longhorn Man]

i've never seen anyone use a compressor on a front end like this.
Granted, you have no weight on the chassis, but even like that, you should habe been able to unbolt the lower a arm and put the spring in, then jack the a arm into place.
On a completed vehicle, there is no reason to use a compressor, which is why you couldn't find one.

[dave2953]

It looks like it worked quite well. I have had the springs out several times but never used one of those. Although, I've only reinstalled cut springs and never put a stock set back in, which might make a difference.

[pritch]

Originally Posted by Longhorn Man

On a completed vehicle, there is no reason to use a compressor, which is why you couldn't find one.

I'm down to just the frame. I don't have any weight to jack against.

[mclairmo]

The mechanic gave you the wrong compressor, that's an outside coil compressor not the inside version. The inside version is actually similar to the one you made but much better.