Technical I Should have had Larger C-Clamps!

Half of you guys would have crapped your pants if you watched me pull front springs out of cars and put them back in with two crow bars in the years that I was doing it all too often. I've never used a spring compressor on a regular rear wheel drive car with A frames like a Chevy Impala. I've used them on those Fords with the spring on top of the upper A frame as there no other way to do it.
I won't say that I haven't run a chain through a lot of them to keep them from taking off when they do pop out when I am taking them out though.

I'd bet that the guy on the left moved right after the photo was taken back to where he normally stood and where the camera man couldn't see his face right after the photo was taken.
Blowing the photo up so you can see the details shows that it wasn't going to slip off the lower A arm and the other end of the clamp most likely hooked into the shock tower and wasn't going anywhere. that means a lot.

 

Yea, I have never owned a spring compressor either. But, not sure I have ever put a full length spring back in either.

 

If you look at the air gun in the left,,,,,the actuator valve is mounted on the correct side .
He is on the opposite side from normal use ,
I’m sure he was asked to move to the back side so the photographer could get the shot .

Tommy

 

I don't own a spring compressor either, and I always put bigger springs in.

 

These would have been handy when rebuilding the front suspension...

 

This work was considered hazardous pay and they got 25 cents more an hour.

 

First day of Auto Mechanics Class 10th grade the teacher gives us all a tour of the shop. Two of the first things he shows us were :
1 the silver dollar size hole in the old time heater ducting 14 feet above a workbench from a valve retainer that shot off of a cylinder head, because some kid wasn't paying attention while putting valves back in.

2 a large section of cinder block about the size of a human head missing from the wall next to one of the lifts waste high. His comment was....this is what happens when I get interrupted by an office assistant with a message while teaching a 1st timer how to remove a front spring!!!!

I have done dozens of them myself without a compressor (mostly GM) but I have to admit the ones on my OT square body 1 tons were so stout I ended up making an internal one out of a beefy threaded rod & thick round plates. That way it cannot come out because the rod sticks out below where the shock mounts on the lower control arm.

God Bless
Bill
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...ar-transport-hauling-open-or-enclosed.614419/

 

You don't just throw a few of those in the tool box drawer. Gonna need some really big nails or hooks on the wall.

 

GM X frame for sure

 

Sneak up behind them and yell BANG!

 

Do you think those two guys made it to retirement ?

 

If their livers held out from all those nickel beers, maybe. And Chesterfields were only 15c. Pick up a carton for the weekend!