RE: [alfa] Front spring removal

[Jon Pike <jhpike@xxxxxxx>]

I went through the first half of this (letting 'em down) a while ago..  
soon to go thru the second half. (cranking them back up)

I recall reading there is about 1650 lbs in them thar springs under full 
compression,  which might not make sense till you realize the suspension 
has greater leverage on them,  being farther down the arm to the pivot 
than the end of the wheel is.. 
Anyway..  even though I've been told about using a jack carefully,  I 
opted for the threaded rods as well.
Of course I thought about it too much (as I do) and just about talked 
myself into 4 specially hardened 3/8ths rods..  till I realized each one 
could handle 4000 lbs!!  ;-)   I got regular 3/8ths allthread,  which 
had benifits of A. being close to the diameter of the original bolts, 
preventing the bolt from "walking" around in the hole as much..  and B. 
having a coarser thread pitch, for less turning and turning and 
turning...  Finding a appropriatly  sized thick washer to make a shim 
stack of to space the nut out from the bottom of the spring pan for easy 
wrenching is a good thing as well.  Rods need to be at least 8" long 
AFAIR, mine were 10" which left comfortable room for placing the nuts on 
the ends..

The thing I'm thinking about though, with all the cranking,  is I may 
use a hybrid approach on the way back:  put in the rods,  and use the 
jack to reasonably remove slack in stages,  to speed up the process.  
Then again,  if you favor your forearms sporting the Popeye the Sailor 
Man look... you should skip the jack!

Jon
77 Spider
Irvine, CA


> Thanks Jeff.
>
> Good point on installation.   Which got me thinking...
>
> With the jack under the spring pan, when I remove the last bolt from the pan to 
> the a-arm, the car might launch itself upward as the spring uncompresses, with 
> nothing keeping tension between the pan and the a-arm holes.   As the car 
> launches itself upward, the jack comes off the pan and I end up in hospital.
>
> Ok, threaded rod it is!  I knew there was a reason this was a bad idea.
>
> - -Peter
>
>  
>
> > > Peter - 
> > > You could probably remove the springs this way, if you're careful. In fact,
> > > I'd probably still put the threaded rod through the holes with nuts and
> > > washers on the ends as kind of a safety.
> > >
> > > I'd be more concerned about putting them back in ... you'll probably start
> > > picking the car up off the jack stands before you compress the spring enough
> > > to get the bolts in.
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