Hear me out on this one, im installing a set of Tokico Illuminas with H&R springs. Now I dont have any spring compressors so I was wondering what the best technique is to remove the tophat without losing an eye. After thinking about it for awhile I started wondering why you couldnt pop the hood, and with the car on the ground remove the nut then, and then slowly jack it up and remove the shock and tophat seperately. This way the spring is completely compressed when the car is sitting on its own and theres no risk of anything flying around.
This makes total sense in my head, but i have a feeling im not processing something correctly. haha
Is this totally idiotic? Tell me why this wouldnt work?
Not sure about that cuz once the spring is loose, it might be hard to take it off the lca since the shocks and springs are longer.
What I do is just put the top hat portion halfway in a box, poke a hole on top of the box so your wrence can fit through and just turn the screw.
When it pops, the screw just shoots in the box… don’t know if you get the picture… hard to explain.
Dude just go to an auto parts store and borrow a spring compressor. They usually rent them out for free, you pay a small deposit and when you return the part they give you the deposit back.
Wrap the whole thing good in a shower towel, then face the bottom end of shock against the wall or something that won’t move. Don’t use socket type tool as it may shoot ur fingers. It shouldn’t be that bad and it shouldn’t shoot more than 3-5inches apart and not the nut don’t always go flying away like they say.
I’m a big guy so with.my weight feet with shoes on and did what I.mention works great.
[QUOTE=Boostpyro90;2215117]Hear me out on this one, im installing a set of Tokico Illuminas with H&R springs. Now I dont have any spring compressors so I was wondering what the best technique is to remove the tophat without losing an eye. After thinking about it for awhile I started wondering why you couldnt pop the hood, and with the car on the ground remove the nut then, and then slowly jack it up and remove the shock and tophat seperately. This way the spring is completely compressed when the car is sitting on its own and theres no risk of anything flying around.
This makes total sense in my head, but i have a feeling im not processing something correctly. haha
Is this totally idiotic? Tell me why this wouldnt work?[/QUOTE]
let me ask you this… what are you going to do for the reversal? how are you going to install the spring onto the shocks?
I think the point of his statement is, if you need to compress the spring to disassemble the strut/top-hat… that he’ll probably need to compress the spring to re-assemble.
True, if its a shorter spring then you should be able to re-assemble without compressing the spring.
What about them?
I say you got a window of about 10 seconds to disassemble/reassemble the struts before the tie wrap snaps and shoots the spring in your face.
Plenty of time… go for it!
With that said… if a spring compressor is easily accessible, then go get one save yourself the headaches…
Just go get a spring compressor and if your upgrading to coils then you wont need the compressor anymore since you can drop the spring on the strut. But seriously dude. The spring compressor is free or just pay $25 and get a set and be SAFE. If you buy it the tool you can just swap someones springs for $25 and pay yourself back for the part.
Thanks guys, i figured i might try to see if i can rent a compressor for free. I was just wondering if that idea would work. Ive never heard anyone ask that before or use that tecnique so i figure it was worth throwing it out there…
And no thanks on the zip ties, unless i used like 100 of them!
So I installed the new setup last night. I rented a set of compressors, however once i got them home realized they definately wouldnt work, so on to the next idea. I went for it and undid the top hat nut with the car on the ground. Worked like a gem! Theres obviously no tension on the shock from the spring…
The problem resulted from getting the actually shock and spring out after it had been expanded. haha Using my imagination, i pulled out a set of vice grips and went to work. I squeezed 2 coil together with the vice grips, and it was just enough to get the shock out of the fork. Literally a fraction of an inch of room to get it out. haha
Anyway, just thought id share my experience. I LOVE the stance of the H&Rs and these Illuminas are fantastic, I dont care who says Konis are better. This is my second set of Illuminas and I wouldnt buy anything else (well maybe the new Tokico d-spec?)
[QUOTE=Boostpyro90;2215384]So I installed the new setup last night. I rented a set of compressors, however once i got them home realized they definately wouldnt work, so on to the next idea. I went for it and undid the top hat nut with the car on the ground. Worked like a gem! Theres obviously no tension on the shock from the spring…
The problem resulted from getting the actually shock and spring out after it had been expanded. haha Using my imagination, i pulled out a set of vice grips and went to work. I squeezed 2 coil together with the vice grips, and it was just enough to get the shock out of the fork. Literally a fraction of an inch of room to get it out. haha
Anyway, just thought id share my experience. I LOVE the stance of the H&Rs and these Illuminas are fantastic, I dont care who says Konis are better. This is my second set of Illuminas and I wouldnt buy anything else (well maybe the new Tokico d-spec?)[/QUOTE]
Congrats for trying something new but like I said on my other post that you’re going to have problems getting the springs out once they are expanded.
About the vise grips idea, you’re lucky the vise grips didn’t give or else you’re going to get a whole lot of vise grips flying every which way… but as long as it worked, it’s all good.
Haha yeah, thats why I only used 1 vise grip so that didnt happen. Interestingly enough I only needed to use one to compress the springs enough to inch the fork and shock out. There wasnt any need to compress the sping on both sides on the spring.
Thanks tho, I was excited to try something new, sometimes it pays to think outside the box. (sometimes!) I just made sure once I started to pull the nut off the top of the shock that the shock didnt follow it and there was space in between, thats how I knew the nut wasnt holding any pressure.
Anyway, if someone wants some advice on how I did it, let me know! Its pretty straight forward though.
Oh and by the way, the car is a blast to drive!!! It sits so nicely and loves to be thrown into turns… good times, i look forward to Autox next week.
You install the shock/spring combo before doing up the nut on the shock shaft. With a jack you compress the suspension which compresses the spring. You just make sure that the shock shaft goes through the top-hat and then you tighten it up and you’re done!
Works great for getting a higher ride height with adjustable coilovers and droop limited shocks, or just installing standard springs without wasting time and money on spring compressors.
I did a lot of research and tried a few different compressors before i found some that would fit between the spring coils AND not hit the metal dust covers. Advance auto has them under “AC838”, they are Performance Tool W80555. They work great. i tried to compress the assembly using a jack under the control arm and just didn’t have much luck. These spring compressors are easy, safe, and let you get everything lined up nicely. Also, you won’t risk damaging your upper mounts or the threads on the damper shaft.
I took my assembly apart by using the “towel method” without the towel.
