will have to remove my front springs in order to lower my ride height. Bought some from Guldstrand racing (link below if you want to check out what i'm working with). I recall when putting them in a while back I had a heck of a time taking the old ones out. It ended up working, but I'd like to take advantage of the collective knowledge here and get tips on doing this job; both removal and installation, safely. Thanks.

http://www.guldstrand.com/ProdImages/Front-Coils-t.jpg

 

i did mine last spring no pun intended ha ha ha . with the car on jack stands, remove the shock and wrapped a chain around the spring and the lower control arm. i loosened the bolts that hold the lower control arm to the frame and slowly lowered the control arm. being very careful and having an escape route just in case.

good luck

 

Good springs.

Jack the car up on stands. I put them on the front sway bar mounts. Make sure they are solid by shaking the car.

Loosen the sway bar and swing it out of the way.

Remove the shocks.

Remove tie rod ends.

Cut some wooden blocks about 3" long and the same width as the rotors and unbolt the calipers and remove while sliding in the blocks to prevent the pads from collapsing. Tie the calipers up to the frame behind the a frames out of the way.

Put a floor jack under the lower ball joint and jack up aframe to almost ride height.

Take the top ball joint nut all the way off, then clean the threads enough so that you can reinstall the nut finger tight. This is important because if it is tight, it will create hell when the joint is loose from the spindle.

Put the nut back on it's full depth, that should leave approx 1/8" space until it would be tight.

If reusing the upper ball joint, use a puller to loosen, if using a new joint, a pickle fork is enough.

The joint should pop, but the nut will keep it from separating, but with the floor jack underneath it can be removed now.

Then lower the floor jack slowly, and the lower arm should go down far enough to let the spring out. When the spring is almost completely extended, it may still be stuck in the pocket(s), but I just pry it out if need be with a 2x4, so as not to mar anything.

Use a spring compressor to install.

You can remove the lower ball joint instead and not touch the brakes, but I find it easier to reinstall etc with the top.

While apart, I like to grind the original weld splatter etc and clean that part of the frame and paint with rustoleum.







Pic of the inside of the top spring pocket. It is contoured to resemble the top of the spring with the deepest part starting at the guide hole. You can use a 5/16? x 3/4" bolt and screw it in the hole. Then when the spring is inserted into the pocket, turn the pring until it butts the bolt. When completely assembled, remove bolt.



Pic of bolt with spring against it.



If the coils are even top and bottom you could use the bottom instead, but this just gives a better view of how that works.

 

if ur not reusing the old springs in the future u can cut a few coils first with a torch if u have one to remove the tension and do what the thread above this says to do, the thread from from "Noonie", but you'll have compress them to put them back in, I have put them back without compressing them but there is a bit of a challenge.

 

I pulled mine out last month without compressing them. I found that, at least for my '76 with original springs, I was able to just carefully lower the lower control arm with a jack and they were almost free with little tension still in them. I pulled them out easily by pushing the control arm very low in its swing and just pulling the spring out with my bare hands.

My replacement springs had a much shorter free length, and I was able to put them both back in without special tools- just a good quality jack under the control arm, the upper spring properly in its perch, and rotate the control arm up with the jack and the springs (with only a little nudging) went into their final positions. You do have to be careful to rotate the springs so the ends end up in the correct positions as illustrated above with the bolts in the holes.

 

i took the shock out and ran about 3 feet of all thread though the center. i put an aluminum plate, washer, and nut on the bottom, under the lower control arm, and double nutted it up top. i disconnected the lower control arm cross shaft from the frame, and just put a wrench on the lower bolt and slowly let it down.

for installing it, i put a jack under the control arm and jacked it up a bit, tightend the lower nut, jacked a bit, tightened, repeat till it was all the way up. no worries at all about something letting go or getting whacked with a spring.

 

My 82 was the same way.