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Front Suspension Leaf Spring Compressor and Removal

41K views 104 replies 30 participants last post by  nickincrete 
#1 ·
A while ago, I rebuilt my GT's front suspension. There are several excellent threads on the topic, but I thought I would build a thread showing what I did to fabricate and use a front suspension leaf spring compressor.

So, to start, you don't HAVE to use a compressor tool to disassemble the front suspension on a GT. If you have the suspension still mounted on the car, you can "compress" the front leaf by placing jacks under each A-arm at the ends of the transverse leaf (the "spring eyes"; this might not work if you don't have the engine still in the car; the weight may not be enough). Then you remove the "spring eye bolts" and lower the ends of the leaf (make sure that the car body is still supported!). Then the rest of the front suspension clip can either be disassembled, piece by piece, while it is still on the car, or you could then remove it as an assembly and disassemble it on a bench. But you have to install it back in the car to reverse the process, and I have heard that it can be tricky to get the spring-eye bolts back into place using this method.

Since I wanted to do a complete rebuild, including sand blasting the components and re-painting them, I decided to build a proper GT Leaf Spring Compressor. The FSM (Factory Service Manual) provides a portion of a photo that shows the proper factory tool. That, and a photo posted by Stanley P. provided the template that I used to build mine.

First, I needed a device to clamp onto the leaf spring. Here's what the FSM show:
 

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#52 ·
Bosco, Changing the bushings with the front suspension out is a good plan, you may want to think about getting spring end bushings and new rubber for the steering rack too. I didn't remove the lower ball joint to replace the bushings, just loosen the nut, smack it right smartly and it will separate from the spindle. It has to be pressed out of the LCA. Protect the spindle and the balljoint shaft, they are both tapered to fit and little dings don't help. The upper balljoint will come out of the UCA by removing the two bolts holding them together. Anything other than stock suspension, I can't help you with, I'm still box stock on mine. HTH.
 
#53 ·
The steering rack I've done....and I did get the spring eye bushings also. I feel alot better about tackling this than I did...the LCA bushings/mounts/plates still seem to be a slight mystery but I'm sure will seem alot clearer once I get into the job. Should the Panhard rod go below level I'll have to find out how to modify it.
Thanks for all the help.
Mike
 
#54 ·
Thought I'd add a few "before" type pics to this thread that might be helpful.

I made sure to include one with the spring uncompressed to give some sense of its range of motion. I also put a few close-ups of the "perches" on the LCAs. After I had the rest of the LCA free, I tried a few different levels of compression on the spring to free the bolts in the perches. Finally had to resort to an 8# hammer I use for driving nails in concrete. Sure didn't like banging on things like that with the ole crossbow loaded, but the bolts finally came out. Seems that they were notched a bit from wear near the heads which made them stick.

http://opelgt.com/photos/showgallery.php?ppuser=14715&cat=500
 
#55 ·
Nice compressor Yoda. On mine, for the next front end, I'm going to use "Fine Thread" on the threaded rod. The regular threaded rod galled after a few uses and was a P.I.B to use when we demonstrated it at "Bears" to take his front end apart. On one side of the LCA of "Bears" they were so rusted up, we cut them off. Jarrell
 
#59 ·
That's a good point, anyone else have an opinion on the subject? Anyone strongly against the use of .100"?
I can check this weekend, but I am pretty sure the 2 x 2 tubing I used was 0.125" wall thickness (wt). For sure the 0.250" (1/4") wt is over-kill. I suspect that what you have is actually 0.095" wt, which I am using as the length-wise tie bar for my GT body rotisserie. I would be a bit hesitant as I have already seen how easy it is to deform. The problem won't be "bending strength", but rather "crush strength" at the load points. You will at least need to used a very large thick washer or metal plate at the threaded rod hole, and possibly also at the ends where the bars contact the A-arms.
HTH
 
#60 ·
I already went through and made it out of .250" I am sure it is overkill, but for this job I would rather be safe than sorry. Also I already had the material and buying 1/8" would be more money out of the pocket and it would take a few days to get here.
 
#61 ·
Here is the finished spring compressor, I opted not to use the adjustable pitman arm puller because....well they cost money and shipping takes time and I have never been too patient. So I used 2 pieces of square box tubing which "sandwich" the cross member with 2 bolts, I also feel a little safer with this design. Though because of the radiator and steering rack brackets I was not able to grab the cross member from dead center which I hope doesn't turn out to be a problem. I have the hole that the all-thread goes through in the compressor offset that amount, I also drilled a hole dead center in the spring compressor just in case later on it is used with a pitman arm puller.
 

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#62 ·
The Loop ...

I opted not to use the adjustable pitman arm puller because....well they cost money and shipping takes time and I have never been too patient. So I used 2 pieces of square box tubing which "sandwich" the cross member with 2 bolts, I also feel a little safer with this design.
Very similar to the design I used back in post #39 of 11/27/2004

http://www.opelgt.com/forums/attach...spring-compressor-removal-gtfrontsusp-002.jpg

I used it because the loop that the Pitman Arm Puller attaches to looked to be a bit suspect on my front spring - did not want the rusty bit to part company halfway through the proceedings. Also does away with having to purchase anything more than some All-thread and some Box-section plus has to be more safely anchored.
 
#63 ·
Jim, I did follow your lead on making mine. I could not remember where I saw the picture and who actually made it. I looked in a bunch of thread and the the photo gallery trying to find the picture again.....but I never looked back in this very thread. :ugh:
 
#64 ·
Good to See it Used!

:D Great minds think alike - but I thought Mods knew more about the search function than us mere mortals!

I used a metal ring around the radiator support that let me keep the All-thread bolt hole in the middle - but I see no problem with the slightly off-centre hole you used.
 
#65 ·
The whole disassembly process was much easier than I thought, most of it took about a half hour, well I think I was just lucky. I had been spraying all of the nuts and bolts of the suspension with penetrating oil every few days for the past few weeks and all of the "bolts from hell" came right out (2 of them needed some persuasion with a brass mallet) the spring eye bolts were tricky because as you can see the penetrating oil wasn't making it to the shank of them, but again some work with a brass mallet and then a drift to finish it off them came right out. Working with the spring compressed was a little scary.....especially when you miss your mark on the spring eye bolt and give the spring compressor a whack, but overall it felt secure; I am glad that I used the .250" square tubing for it though. The fourth picture is a comparison between the stock spring and the 2" sport lowering spring. What do you guys make of the damage in the last picture where the bump stop bracket is partially torn off at the spot welds? Really bad case of bottoming out at some point during it's life?
 

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#67 ·
I thought the sport lowering spring was a big one-piece fiberglass unit. I think the spring you show looks like a two leaf steel unit. Where did you get that? I wanna play with one. Where can I get one? Yours would be rulebook legal in my car, fiberglass would not and stock springs are frustrating to tune...
Show us a recent photo of your hands, I want to count your fingers.
Springs are fun, glad your tool worked. My method is really similar but uses the car's trailer, an assortment of 2x6's and 2x4's and two chainfalls to do the scary part.
 
#68 ·
Jeff, This lowering spring in particular was possibly sold by ogts (I bought it second hand) they have a 1" lowering spring and a 2" one. The 2" one would be great for you, it will really keep your tires stuck on the track. I think they go for $180 or so for either one. Rallybob had the fiberglass springs made years ago and they were one solid piece, I am of course sure he himself could tell you more.

And I can assure you that I can still count to ten after playing with the spring the only casualty was a skinned knuckle....no smoke and mirrors here :cool:
 
#69 ·
To my knowledge that 2" spring came from Opels Unlimited a long time ago.
 
#71 ·
If the rubber bump stops should have half of it cut off when lowering 2" that would make them roughly 11/16" high, in which case could just a plain 11/16" polyurethane bump stop be used? Or would polyurethane be way too hard in this dimension?
 

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#73 ·
The Opel jack screw is probably too short to use, also how would you attach it to the compressor itself? Another problem with it is how course the threads are on it, that would make it very difficult use and also that much more dangerous.
 
#75 ·
Three Feet!

I used a full length of 20mm "All-Thread" - 1metre long .... and it was just long enough! Try a 3 foot length of 5/8" or 3/4" All-Thread studding as it is available at most Engineer's Supply shops or even Hardware stores at a reasonable price.

Trust me - you DO NOT want to run out of thread halfway through the job. :banghead:

Oh! And lube the thread with Diff oil or something nice and Extreme Pressure ...
 
#76 ·
Thanks everybody

:veryhappyI would like to thank everybody who contributed to this thread (especially Kwilford who supplied the photo's of the spring compressor in the first place).
This morning I succesfully finished working on my GT's front suspension according to all the instructions given in this (and some other) thread(s).
I've changed all four ball joints,the bushings of the front leaf spring,the upper control arm bushings, bump stop bushings and the shock absorbers.
Without this tread I would not have managed it.
Shows how usefull this side is!!
And probably without this tread I would not have survived working on the front leave spring (what a strenght is in that spring).
In contrast of most of you I worked on the suspension while it was still mounted on the car letting the spring compressor pulling itself up. It was a little bit of fiddling laying on your back under the raised car, but it worked great.
Had some trouble getting the old lower ball joints out of the A-arm, but with a big hammer, a beam to lay the A-arm on and a lot of brute force (and swearing) I got them out. Tip for refitting a new ball joint: insert it from the right side!!. I was so stupid to refit the ball joint from the wrong side, fortunately I got it back out in one piece.
I also had a lot of trouble getting the new spring eye bushings in. How do you do that, without damaging the new ones?:dunno:
To be certain of my messing about with the car I let everything check by my local garage (one cannot be certain enough about the functioning of the front suspension and steering). They checked everything and found the car in excellent working condition.
So for those who are planning to work on their GT's front suspension: read all threads about this issue and follow their instructions, don't be stubborn trying to find it out yourself: you'll be injured!
And finishing with the legendary words of the Hill Street Blues sergeant: Let's be careful out there!
 
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