Recently I did an overhaul of the front and rear suspensions. When doing the front and doing the I figured I could make a tool for getting the front springs off, it worked a treat, here's what I did, took half an hour:

Shopping
1) A length of 18mm or 19mm threaded bar, cheap from B&Q in the UK
2) A couple of nuts to fit the 18/19mm threaded bar, and some thick washers.
3) A metre length of 10mm threaded bar.
4) 4 x 10mm Nylock nuts
5) a 6mm or 8mm Roll Pin

Method:
Drill a 5.5mm hole (or 7.5mm depending on what size Roll Pin you got) about 1" or so below one end of the thick threaded bar, hammer the Roll Pin into the drilled hole. Cut the Roll Pin so there's 5/8" sticking out each side of the threaded bar. Cut the threaded bar to about 18" (45cm) length.

Take the metre length 10mm threaded bar and cut 4 equal lengths, file both ends to screw the Nylock nuts on to one end of each bar length, and the other so it will (eventually) screw into the lower spring pan.

Here's a picture of the ones I made (only showing 2 x 10mm bars I know).



The length



And Width



The 10mm threaded bar(s)


Insert the large threaded bar through the lower pan, and up through the hole in the centre of the top cup, give the threaded bar a 1/4 turn then make sure the roll pin is seated in the 'well' in the top (you might have to clear some debris out of the well to seat it properly). Then screw the large nut, with thick washers, up until you start to take the spring tension. Then I used a large ratchet ring spanner to wind the large nut up, with a bit of effort it will compress the spring (you could even weld some handles on the large nut at a downward angle to assist leverage winding the spring tension up?).

Once the spring tension is off, take out one of the lower spring pan bolts, screw in one of the 10mm threaded bars, remove another pan bolt and do the same. Carry on until you've got all 4 in. (I spaced mine out as best as I could to even the load). Once all 4 x 10mm bars are fitted, remove the rest of the lower spring pan bolts.

Start to wind down the large nut and the lower pan will slide down the 4 x 10mm threaded bars, you might have to 'jiggle' them a bit so the pan doesn't snag on the threads.

Presto, the spring tension will eventually release and you've got the spring out. The tool can be used again and again.

Worked for me anyway

 

I did similar with hardened rod and it worked great.

Also relevant joke, but for older BL cars:

 

Did almost the same, only I used a larger washer and put a 3"L x 1.5"D galvanized pipe behind it with another washer on the end to get the nut out of the bucket and prevent a knuckle buster situation. It allowed me to use a ratchet box end too. There's a thread from last summer that had a few of us showing what we had done for someone asking how to build such a tool.

 

Classic!!!!!!

 

euphonium01,

Thanks for posting the photos of your spring compressor. Lots of owners have constructed their own along those same lines since the early 90s at least. Below is a link to photos of mine. I used a steel ball as the thrust device after the example of Win at the Jag-Lovers forum, but a stack of heavy washers works just as well:

Front Road Spring Compressor Construction & Use

For safety, 80sRule's tip on hardened rod is worth following. I would recommend using at least medium-strength threaded rod, but high-strength is better. Very-high-strength would be best, but it's really expensive and probably overkill.

I would also recommend the use of a high-strength dowel pin instead of a roll pin. When I was shopping for parts, the 1/4 in. / 6 mm roll pins or spring pins I could find had a breaking strength of 4,100 pounds, but the allow steel dowel pins of the same diameter had a breaking strength of 10,000 to 12,000 pounds. Since all the stored energy in the spring must be supported by the pin, it is prudent to use the strongest pin you can.

And just to add another graphic to the hilarious one posted by 80sRule, here's my revision of a funny chart created by someone else:


Cheers,

Don

 

What's funny is that I buy the big 200 piece tool sets that are like $50-75 and they end up leading horrific lives. Bent and cut wrenches become things like a GM Oxygen Sensor 7/8" box end wrench tool for use on 3800 V6s. Then the awful 12pt crap steel sockets are used with my press, but never used for ruining bolt heads and nuts lol.

Half of my transmission rebuild homemade tools are so chintzy looking but there are several cars with over 100k on my rebuilds, so they work! I don't think I've ever bought a proper cam locking tool as I just make my own; I have a piece of wood with two pieces of steel in it for I5 cam locking, a crap piece of flat steel and some bolts for my VW/Audi V6 locking tool, etc.