Compresing springs - something I now hate more than plumbing

[danwheeler]

Yeah, I'm with Nate.. I have gone back and forth at least 6 or 7 times on different Festivas.. From oem to FMS Sports, from FMS back to stock and never had a spring compressor. Pretty much just a floor jack under the strut and a couple of jackstands to keep the car up.

I can't imagine doing it that way. Thats not even making sense to me how thats possible. The front spring is 15". The front strut is about 10" from spring perch to spring perch. The spring needs to be compressed 5". If I were to place the spring on the strut and try to put it all up into the wheel well it wouldn't even fit - it's too long. I tried. Furthermore, even if you did find a way to jack the strut up with a floor jack how would you then attach it to the knuckle? Are you saying you attach the strut to the knuckle uncompressed then jack up the knuckle? My steering knuckle wouldn't go low enough for me to do that.


Once I figured out how to properly use the spring compressor and used some small hose clamps on the spring coils to keep the spring compressor from slipping up the spring it was actually a pretty easy job. It's really cool to just shove the whole strut/spring assembly up into the wheel well and bolt it up. Too bad you can't buy strut/spring assemblies as a package.

[Guest]

What can I say? I just did it recently. I took the FMS springs and GR-2s off of Zippy and put stock springs and struts on, it wasn't that hard. I did have one of my boys come out and step on the swaybar so I could put a screwdriver in the bottom strut bolt hole. The whole assembly tilts out. I then push it in and use the screwdriver in the bottom hole to align the top strut bolt hole. Once that bolt is in everything else is pie..

[oxbrain]

Too bad you can't buy strut/spring assemblies as a package.

That UPS dock worker will regret being rough with that package. :twisted:

The FMS springs are much shorter than stock apparently. I only had to compress mine maybe an inch to get them on the strut.

Are you planning on an aspire brake swap? Pull a part has some very low prices on rear beams and hubs. IIRC it was $25 for the beam and $5 per hub.

[danwheeler]

Too bad you can't buy strut/spring assemblies as a package.

That UPS dock worker will regret being rough with that package. :twisted:

The FMS springs are much shorter than stock apparently. I only had to compress mine maybe an inch to get them on the strut.

Are you planning on an aspire brake swap? Pull a part has some very low prices on rear beams and hubs. IIRC it was $25 for the beam and $5 per hub.

haha yeah, i dont care how secure that top not on the strut is I still held the whole thing away from my body expecting the spring to fly off of there at any moment. I wore eye protection and thick welding gloves the whole time while playing with those springs. It's like installing a Jack in the Box under your car.

Not sure if i'm going to do the Aspire swap. It brakes very well and I'm really inclined to leave the Festiva parts in place and not mess with stock. Maybe sometime down the road I'll do that. I've got a 69 Bronco and 79 Trans Am that are taking up most of my time these days. Does lynwood pull-a-part have a lot of Aspires in the lot now?

[oxbrain]

When I went to the lynwood one about 3 weeks ago they had 4 aspire. They cycle stuff out quickly enough that they could all be gone by now. It's pretty rare for them to not have any, usually they have one or two.

I need to get my car running to show you the difference. The brakes don't really change much except pedal feel, but that is subjective and might be from the new fluid. The rear sway bar really balances out the car though. The turn-in is better, and the front end grips a lot more before you get understeer. At the autox I was even getting some oversteer under braking.

Autox season starts in March, so that is my new deadline for finishing the car. If I have to rip out the B6D and put in a sohc I'll do that to get it running by then.