Coil spring compressor.

[jjrbus]

I picked up a set of pass through sockets has come in handy several times. Nothing big enough for the castle nuts. https://www.harborfreight.com/sae-and-metric-pass-thru-socket-set-21-piece-62305.html

 

[booster]

It is a lot easier when you know what you are doing. Was not that difficult a job, I had one cotter pin that refused to come out and I could not swing a hammer to unseat the ball joint. So I used an air hammer and screwed up the castle nut which cost me 20 minutes of frustration to get off.

On the other side I will loosen the LCA nuts so the arm will drop easier and have a straight shot for the floor jack instead of going in at an angle. Whole thing made me nervous as I did not know what to expect. Much ado about nothing though!

I am surprised that the new Moog 81012 is a bit shorter than the original spring, not much about 3/8 inch.

I may have a spring compressor like yours, I am waiting for a call! https://ibb.co/CvHY8Dd

Probably my misinterpretation, but where is that jack stand supporting the van? It looks to be higher than the frame and a lot like a body mounting bracket.

 

[jjrbus]

I have never been comfortable working under a vehicle and have trouble leaving enough room for me to work. I have one jack stand behind the one you are looking at located at the official jacking point. The one you are looking at is in the body mount bracket but not quite touching. The third one is at the front of the frame, same side, again not touching. The bellows jack is at the center front jacking point, only lifted about 1/2 inch.

https://ibb.co/zQyCXmw

 

[jjrbus]

Murphy is alive and well on this project. I found the OTC spring compressor about 1 1/2 hours away. They do not want to ship. I am having gall bladder issues and can't make the drive so they ship! Tool $125, shipping $30, cash transfer $10. Total $165 not bad.

But it shows up missing 1 large plate! It was in box when shipped as confirmed by picture.

I have searched everyplace I can think of for a plate but none seem to be available. Anyone have any thoughts on sourcing a plate? https://ibb.co/y5rwRVq

 

[jjrbus]

Murphy is alive and well on this job, just one thing after another. 3 ball joint rental kits and the cups did not fit my bushings. Asked the neighbor for help and he came through.

The spring compressor is in limbo, little hope of having one for this job.

There is no way I can hold the spring on the arm and get it into position plus maneuver the jack. I was able to block it up with scraps of wood and use a piece of rebar to hold it in place.

I need to have some skin cancer removed so will have some time to figure out my next move.



https://ibb.co/LXMXRNhP

 

[jjrbus]

As it turned out, my arm felt a bit better today so I decided to give the disassembly a try so I can move on with the lighter work of making the doubler plates and welding them in. A bit painful but no damage done.

I was basically starting where the van would be if the shock was out but nothing else.

The pix will show some of the things that make it relatively easy, except for cranking the compressor up with a 1 1/4" wrench and no you can't get a socket on it as it would have to be very, very deep of a socket. So impact wrench was out.

I removed the wheel, caliper, caliper bracket, rotor, splash guard, and wheel hub, but left the knuckle on and both ball joints connected to start.

I put a jack under the lower balljoint and jacked it up to take some of the the load off the compressor that I had already put in. Compressor is not all that hard to get in the right position once you figure out how works best. Once it was compressed so that I had less than about 1/8" between the coils with the compressor and the spring was nearly loose when I lowered the jack to let it sit on the upper control arm stop. The jack was then moved to not be on the lower balljoint as it would spin there, and moved just inside the balljoint on the forward side of the arm. A second jack was placed just outboard of the rear pivot of the lower arm to just snugly hold it up. I took the upper balljoint loose and put arm up and blocked out of the way. Then I lowered the first jack until the spring was loose in the pocket.

At this point, you would think that the spring would come out, but it won't quite come out at that point because of the compressor long rod through the small shock hole and the deep spring pocket.

To get the spring out the easiest and safest, I think, is to first remove the rear pivot bolt by tweaking the jacks to take the load off bolt. Then do the same for the front bolt but only push it out as far as just getting it through on side of the support bracket and inside the bushing. This will allow the arm to tilt some.

At this point you can lower the rear jack and the front jack enough to pull the spring out the rear side of the lower control arm. If the rubber snubber drops with spring pull it off before removing the spring as it makes it easier.

You can then jack up the jacks to level again and remove the front pivot bolts, lower the jacks and lower arm is out.

Reducing force needed to crank compressor tight.

Rear of arm lowered.

Ready to remove spring. It is probably best to have knuckle off at this point, but it didn't matter in getting the spring out. I took it off before lowering the jacks.

Thanks for the post with all the pictures, somehow I missed it before.

 

[booster]

Thanks for the post with all the pictures, somehow I missed it before.

Hope they can help you get what you want done.

I figured I would put a post up since the forum has been up since yesterday and nobody noticed, it appears. Some may get notifications to let them know. Most forum never come close the being up again when promised, so the owners and mods did a fantastic job on this change.

 

[jjrbus]

Hope they can help you get what you want done.

I figured I would put a post up since the forum has been up since yesterday and nobody noticed, it appears. Some may get notifications to let them know. Most forum never come close the being up again when promised, so the owners and mods did a fantastic job on this change.

 

[jjrbus]

Looks like everything is working well, hopefully the new platform will not log me out every 4 minutes! And the biggest gift of all is being able to add pictures without a URL. I added this picture to test! Dr has me on light duty for a few days so will not be working on this.

 

[jjrbus]

Thanks to the owner operators the site now keeps me logged in! I used the attach files at the bottom instead of picture icon at top to add pictures.

Looks like the 4 inch plate lost in shipping is a lost cause and I am at the mercy of the shipper to file for insurance and make a refund. So ordered a new one and waiting delivery.

In the meantime I have been tinkering with the MOOG 81012 spring and the 4 inch plate. I have some concerns and there is little to nothing on the net using the OTC 7045B in my situation.

The largest gap between coils where I would put the plate in is .070, the plate is .063. It seems that any pressure on the spring and the plate will not come out after installation. The .070 gap is towards the middle of the spring, the opening in the frame for the top of the spring is over 6 inch deep. If I put the compressor plate towards the top of the spring will I be able to use the compressor shaft to turn the plate in the springs to lower it to the middle of the spring?

Another thought can I, would you put the bottom plate under the lower control arm instead of inside the spring? May make keeping everything together easier.

 

[booster]

You may or may not be able to turn it with the rod as sometimes when it is loose the pin and ball end will get out of the plate or the pin moves out of the rod as you try to crank it and the angle of the hole in the plate changes as the plate turns. I have had not great luck doing it that way.

I have found it easier to remove the rod and ball end and then just turn the plate down to best place to get it to be able to slide out.

I assume you have your decimal points off by one place and you are really meaning .70" and .63". .07 is probably enough to get the plate out of the spring.

Hopefully, your spring coil spacing won't change much when the spring is released from the compressor. The spring and lower arm will be held up by the upper control arm which sitting on the frame stop which lets the lower arm drop quite a lot. Many will the plate removal with it being held up under the lower arm with a jack, but I think that is a bit risky because if the jack slip it wiil drop all the way down and spring may fly out.

The spring may bow out in the middle a bit, ours does, and that can also increase the gap some.

It it does not have gap you probably can get the little bit you need by making a couple of tapered shims about 3/4" wide and drive them between coils to spread them at 90* to each side from the front. Make sure the ears on the plate are facing the right way to shims as you pull out the plate. Once you have the plate out you can use a big pry bar to spread the coils to get the shims out as you will have lots of room.

If you do get a new compressor and still have the old one, I would be interested in buying the draw rod from you if you want to sell it. Mine got slightly bent quite a while so it is a bit harder to use than it should be and don't really know if it would be full strength if bent back as I don't know what alloy it is. Probably OK because it is pretty soft, but if I can get another one, I would prefer it.

 

[jjrbus]

Of course I have the decimal points in the wrong place! I am a retired engineer but I blew the horn and rang the bell!

It does not appear I will be able to access the plate once the spring is installed to screw it down. Wonder what Marco did?

Thanks for the quick response, You have helped me a lot, if I end up with the tool the draw rod is yours.

 

[jjrbus]

After thought, if you bought the tool new and have the receipt. If OTC does not have the replacement part they will send you a entire new tool, only if you have proof of purchase.

 

[booster]

Good point so I just went and looked to the instructions and receipt, but no luck. Very unlike me to not have that.

 

[jjrbus]

Any possibility where you bough it will issue a duplicate? I have 10,000 receipts and can never find the one I need.

 

[booster]

Any possibility where you bough it will issue a duplicate? I have 10,000 receipts and can never find the one I need.

Actually, I don't ever remember where I got it as it was 10 years ago. I thought it might be Amazon, but they didn't show anything.

 

[jjrbus]

Been struggling with getting the spring in place, the deep pocket at the top makes it look impossible. A younger guy without shoulder problems might be able to do it. As much as I hate to I may have to remove the LCA and use 2 jacks to replace the LCA and the spring at the same time.

 

[booster]

Been struggling with getting the spring in place, the deep pocket at the top makes it look impossible. A younger guy without shoulder problems might be able to do it. As much as I hate to I may have to remove the LCA and use 2 jacks to replace the LCA and the spring at the same time.

Before going any further, measure the height of your spring. If it is any longer that stock ones are it is pretty near impossible to get in without a compressor. With the compressor, I found the method I show in the pix to be by far the best way to do it. Users have said the MOOG springs. Your 2002 is previous gen, I think so the spring will be shorter than mine are.

Without a compressor you need to disconnect the lower ball joint and swing the arm to near vertical position to be able to put the uncompressed spring in place. You slide the spring up into the shock tower and then swing the arm back up a bit until the tail of the spring kind of snaps into the pocket for the tail in the arm. The rest of the spring is just hanging in air. You then have to swing the arm a bit further until you can get a jack under the control arm to start lifting it up. This is where it gets scary as the spring looks like it could fly out at any minute, so strapping the spring to a solid object is best to do to be safe. You lift it at the balljoint until you can reconnect the ball joint stud to the arm. Keep jacking until you can connect the upper ball joint and arm to knuckle and it is then safe as it will stop the lower arm from falling very far and dumping the spring if the jack slips or fails. It ain't a comfortable operation.

The factory procedure says to leave the ball joints connected and drop the pivot end of the arm, but it is nearly impossible to get the holes lined up to put the bolt in with spring uncompressed.

I have shoulder surgery this Surgery at Mayo Rochester for worst of my shoulders. Rotator cuff repair of tears that haven't totally failed and hopefully reattachment of my totally ruptured bicep. Cold therapy machine just showed up today as those that have had the surgery say they are totally required to ease the pain.

 

[jjrbus]

My 02 is an 01 chassis, 3500. What you are describing is what I am seeing online, You tube and such. But I do not see the deep upper frame cavity for the top of the spring. The LCA nuts have not been tightened and the LCA is hanging loose against the stops. The new Moog spring is 3/8" shorter than the OE spring. The old spring came out so the new one will go back in. Just maybe not as easy.

I had a difficult time lining up the LCA holes with nothing interfering, plus the service manual says not to force or beat on the control arm to reinstall. Will tinker with it some more tomorrow.

Dr told me my rotator cuff is not so bad that I must repair it but bad enough they will perform the surgery if I want. I do not want any more surgery and now they want to remove my gall bladder. I try to not strain the shoulder and am careful of what I eat to avoid the surgery.

Good luck with the surgery, the worst part is the recovery and being diligent about the physical therapy.

 

[booster]

My 02 is an 01 chassis, 3500. What you are describing is what I am seeing online, You tube and such. But I do not see the deep upper frame cavity for the top of the spring. The LCA nuts have not been tightened and the LCA is hanging loose against the stops. The new Moog spring is 3/8" shorter than the OE spring. The old spring came out so the new one will go back in. Just maybe not as easy.

I had a difficult time lining up the LCA holes with nothing interfering, plus the service manual says not to force or beat on the control arm to reinstall. Will tinker with it some more tomorrow.

Dr told me my rotator cuff is not so bad that I must repair it but bad enough they will perform the surgery if I want. I do not want any more surgery and now they want to remove my gall bladder. I try to not strain the shoulder and am careful of what I eat to avoid the surgery.

Good luck with the surgery, the worst part is the recovery and being diligent about the physical therapy.

We have heard that "no deep pocket" issue at least once before on the previous generation of Chevies so it may be a "sometimes" type of thing with some vans only.

You would have stamped steel/fabricated control arms so can't compare to cast or forged (depending on who you believe) arms on the current generation of vans.

If you could get a pic and post it, that would help a lot.

I did try the pic posting and it worked fine for me.
click the insert image icon
you should get a popup box that says to drag and drop pic here
drag the photo image from your computer to box and drop it
click on insert and wait while it uploads it, it will be partially greyed out
you can also click on the popup box and it will go to your Windows file explorer so you can select the pic and just click it and it will be put in place with same delay process