How To: Pre '98 coil spring swap - Discussion thread

finn611

happiness is a warm gun
one of my coil springs broke and had had to swap them out, pretty easy job ( less than 2 hours total ) with the twin I beam trucks. Start by jacking the truck up and getting a jack stand under the frame behind the front tire,
(only picture i have with the jack in it)
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then jack up under the axle to compress the spring a little bit, then unbolt the shock and stabilizer,
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Then you can let the jack down to lower the axle, pop the top of the coils spring out,
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Then get a nice ratchet or in my case a nice impact, your going to need a long extension and a 1 1/8 socket, i sprayed everything down with PB blaster to help break everything loose, but for these i needed some heat ( i used a little propane torch for plumbing)
2012-03-17_11-07-23_721.jpg

Then get the ratchet/impact on a give it hell and pop the coil spring out,
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set the new coil in place and get the retainer and nut back on and tighten the nut back down,
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Get the top of the spring back into possition and jack the axle back up to compress the coil spring so you can bolt the stabilizer and shock back up,
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make sure the spring is in the right possition and you should be all set to bolt the tire back up,
2012-03-17_11-18-23_183.jpg
 
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She drives like a dream now. And honestly i dont think theres much more that can go wrong. The outside looks a little rough, but the front end got fully rebuilt about 5,000 miles ago (wheel bearings, tierod ends, ball joint, u joints, ext.) And the motor still runs like new. I did just have a code pop up that tue canister purge valve is bad so thats next on the list. And this summer shes getting scrubed and undercoated real good.
 
fwiw, the upper part of the coils should "screw" in to those retainers. It shouldnt be just "sitting" in there.

Other than that, it looks good tho!
 
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