I am restoring my 70 BB convertible and wanted to share how I installed my front coil springs.

I used the bolt, three washers and one set of the hooks from the below pictured coil spring compressor:





I placed the three washers on the bolt and stuck it down thru the shock hole.



In the above picture, you can see the end of the coil spring in the observation hole. The end of the coil spring is suppose to be 0.38 inches +/- 0.12 inches from the end of the stop in the pocket. This info is found in the AIM on UPC3, Sheet A4.

I screwed the set of forks with threads in them on the end of the bolt until the bolt was just thru all of the threads. I put the coil spring up on the forks. I positioned the forks perpendicular to the side of the frame with the top end of the coil as shown in the pic above. At this point I just screwed it tight enough to hold it in place.



You can see a hold down strap hooked to the spring going thru the lower control arm opening. This is strapped to the frame on the opposite side. I only applied a small amount of pressure to the strap at this point.



I now started compressing the spring. I probably compressed it somewhere around three inches with a helper watching to see when it looked like it was compressed enough to go in the lower control arm. My helper then tightened the hold down strap to get the coil spring to go inward to seat in the bottom of the lower control arm. Once we had it in place, we used a floor jack with a towel on it and raised the lower control arm. We tighten the coil spring compressor until we could get the nut on the upper ball joint bolt coming down thru the spindle.






And here it is completed.



I hope someone finds this useful. This method worked very well for me but your mileage may vary. And I am not responsible for any problems you may encounter.

Good luck with your installation,
Allen

 

Nice clean job Allen. Never used a strap, looks like a good idea.

 

Thanks John.

I did a lot of searching on the internet, and I didn't particularly want to kick the coil spring in place and scratch up the fresh paint. I had my tie down straps laying in the shop and came up with the idea to pull the coil spring in place with the strap.

 

Hi Allen,
I noticed your description of pulling the spring 'in' to get it to seat in the lower a-arm.
I too found I had to pull the spring inward but never knew why until I saw this photo… note the spring is in a gentle arc when installed, and the suspension hanging free!
Nice Job!!!
Regards,
Alan

 

Allen,
I'll be replacing my front springs in the next few weeks and will be sure to use your procedure.

Thanks,
Russ