Spring hasn't sprung!

Is there any reason why removing a broken coil spring on my W123 would be any harder than if it wasn't broken? Or worse yet, am I going to have to go through hell on the other side too?

Front spring. Russek manual says "undo shock, lift car, attach compressor to 5-6 coils and tighten until spring comes out". Haynes says "attach compressor to 9 coils after jacking up front suspension arm, release jack, spring will come out".

Well, I've tried it with both Draper (2 hooks at each end, annoyingly not quite tight enough curve for the coil) and 'hook at each end' compressors, and the sodding spring won't come out. It's broken at the top, I've tried clamping the top to it /and/ avoiding the broken section, and the coil /always/ seems to come out except for one last bit that doesn't want to release the tension on the seat.

I'm tempted to try prying the bugger out, but common sense is presently engaged.

How the hell I'm going to get the new ones in is beyond me.

I've spent about 3 hours on one side so far. I'm beginning to think a Mercedes dealer would be cheaper in terms of time...

Richard

Reply to
Richard Kilpatrick
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Many years ago when I helped out a friend's garage we used the hydraulic car lift (downwards) to compress the strut till we could fit clamps onto the coils. Probably against all sorts of HSE rules nowadays. DaveK.

Reply to
DaveK

DaveK waffled on in a quite bewildering manner to produce...

isn't everything?

The W123 series isn't MacPherson strutted though. Spring and shock are seperate..

Besides, to compress the spring enough to get 7 coils in my spring clamps, I actually jacked the spring under the weight of the car in order to get the clamps on.. Now that's against HSE rules ..

Reply to
Pete M

I finally got the old spring out - using the jack under the suspension arm, and on as many coils as were visible, but it still bent no matter how the compressors were arranged. Forget HSE, that spring shot out from under the car with a loud 'bang' and took a chunk out of the rusty edge of the front wing. Bloody stupid design.

I can't work out how I'm supposed to compress the new spring sufficiently to get it under the arch. Are there different kinds of spring compressors? I wonder if I'm using a particularly crap kind.

This is not a job I intend doing again.

Richard

Reply to
Richard Kilpatrick

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