Removing front coils, crossmember not in truck

[biohazardbill]

Anyone have some good ideas for removing coils from the front crossmember while it is not in the truck?

Got a new crossmember and want to clean it up, paint etc.

[Ynotnow817]

I borrowed a spring compressor from Oreilly's. Had to torque it down pretty hard then I removed the U blts from lower arms and pulled out spring. Good luck.

[Scot_Douglas]

I wish you were still local - I have one sitting here you could have.

I'd go with a spring compressor - I just wrote all the crap in the quote below, before remembering the top 1/2 of each front coil were broken - so I started off with a shorter spring and had less stored energy in my setup. It may not work for you, and I don't want to tell you something that hurts you - well , at least something not that bad.

I did what you are asking to do - in a sorta destructive way: I put a large c-clamp through the spring and the other end on the bottom of the lower arm and tightened it - this was just to make sure the spring didn't wind up anywhere near my head when I the next thing:
From there, I unbolted the upper a-arms and pulled them off the studs. Then I used a cutoff wheel on the clamps that hold the lower arm to the crossmember. They'll "pop" open about a 1/4" when you cut through one side - that pretty much released the spring tension and I could finish cutting them off.

After that, I could pull the whole control arm/spindle away and just had the crossmember.