Mike's directions are good. For an added measure of safety when I did mine, we ran a chain through the spring and the lower control arm and then padlocked it together as a safety catch, in case the spring decided it wanted to fly out of there.
Also, be sure to place the car plenty high on your jackstands. The lower control arm needs to pivot quite a way down to get the spring out. -Dave -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Mike Holleman Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 10:53 AM To: The Chevelle Mailing List Subject: Re: [Chevelle-list] Q: Safest way to take apart the front suspension? Pelle, I don't know where to send you for instructions, but I can tell you how I remove springs safely. Get the front end up and on jack stands. Put the stands under the frame approx in line with the firewall. Remove the wheels from both sides of the car. Take the cotter pins out of the ball joints and back the nuts off a few turns, enough to allow the joints to pop loose when you apply pressure to them. This is where it gets tricky. Roll a hyd. floor jack under the front end from the opposite side from which you are working. Put the jack under the lower control arm as far out as you can, for max leverage. (by the way the shocks should already be removed). Now jack the car up by the control arm until the weight is off of both jack stands. The spring is now compressed. At this point you can pop the ball joints and remove the nuts. Now slowly lower the car back on to the jack stands and allow the lower control arm to fully extend. At this point there should be little pressure on the spring and it should be able to be pried out of it's perch. It will take a spring compressor to the get the spring back in and compressed enough to reattach your ball joints. I have used this method many times and with success each time, but be sure to use extra caution anytime you are dealing with a compressed coil spring. Also, I don't let anyone help me when I do this. The most dangerous time is when you are letting the tension off the spring and you will not be in danger because you are operating the floor jack from the opposite side of the car. I have never had a spring jump out of the perch, but the man that taught me how to do this has. Hope this helps. Mike Holleman ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pelle Andersson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Chevelle Mailing List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 4:13 AM Subject: [Chevelle-list] Q: Safest way to take apart the front suspension? > Is there any step by step guide somewhere? With pictures ;-) > I DON'T want to get those BB Coils in my face :-( > Is it a hard to change to tubular A-arms? > > Best regards > Pelle Andersson > ------------------------------------------------------------------ > http://members.chello.se/gearheads/ > http://members.chello.se/gearheads/members/pelle/pelle.html > > Mob +46 70-396 42 13 > >
