well today was a bit of fun for me. i got the hotckis springs for my car. i had the front ones installed in under an hour with no problems. i go to do the rears and my POS spring compressor can't commpressor the spring enough for me to install the top mount.

what compressor are you guys using? this is a real PITA. i was on a roll and i had to reinstall the stock unit..


any advice????


on a side note, my car looks pretty cool with just the front dropped

 

with my friends and mine, we had those clamp style ones where its separate so you need to compress one side at a time.



thats just a pic i found on google.

 

that is the style i was using and i couldn't get the spring to compress enough

 

the back you won't be able to compress with a spring compressor. get the car up in the air like you would, jack up the a-arm then uncompress the spring, by using the impact gun on the top nut on the shock. then repeat in backwards order to put the new spring on. you can take the stock springs off with the spring compressor but it's still quicker for the rears to just use this method.

 

can you explain your method alittle bit better. i'm not quite understanding you.

 

it's kinda hard to explain it..... you have the car up in the air like you would normally do, take out all the bolts holding the shock in place, even the top 3 in the trunk. jack up the rear arm quite a bit to compress the spring, undo the nut on the top of the shock. lower the arm back down and the spring will be uncompressed now. pull the whole shock out which will all be loose now. put the new spring back on the shock and do this whole process in reverse order to install the new spring.

 

thank you.. so i'm assuming the top bolt can be reach from inside the trunk?

 

There is a thread on here with pictures of how to do it this way... of course, I don't have it bookmarked, but a search might reveal it...

 

yes it can be reached easily from inside.

 

Um... I did...

 

u did what?

 

did u ever get the rears on?

 

I compressed the rears with the compressor... but I did the compress-against-the-car method to put 'em back in 'cause it's easier.

 

i'm waiting to sat. to do them. i have a real wall mounted spring compressor at work and i'm just going to do them there.

 

you're sure you mounted the compressors on the springs high and low enough to compress enough?

 

We used a spring compressor on mine and it was pretty efficient. Just stretch it out as much as possible before you start compressing it.

 

i did the rears using the "trick" to compress the spring using the control arm. i was able to do each side in under 25mins. super, super, easy..

 

wait how do u get the top nut on with this A arm method..i tried the spring compressor to put the hotchkis springs on but it wont compress enough..i got the stockers off but couldnt get the new springs on

 

I borrowed some from Auto-Zone. You can get them for 40 bux deposit. They work like a charm.

 

bumping this instead of making a new thread =)
i just got my springs and thinking abotu doing it myself..
what is the A arm tho?