Make sure car is on level ground and place a trolley jack under the lower ball joint of the triangle lever on the front side being worked on. Make sure not to damage the grease fitting.
Raise the corner just high enough for the tire to clear the ground and remove the wheel.
Place a jack stand under the front of the frame. Leave the trolley jack in place to keep the spring compressed.
Slide the compressor plate around the lower spring perch. Place the steel upper spring adapter plate on top of the spring plate. Drop the threaded rods through the upper adapter plate and the upper spring top. Screw the rods into threaded holes in the lower compressor plate.
Place a washer and a nut on the bottom of each threaded rod and firmly lock the rods in place. It is critical that the rods cannot unscrew from the lower spring compressor plate when the spring is being decompressed later.
On the top of the rods, place a thick washer, a thin bearing washer, the radial bearing, another thin bearing washer, another thick washer and finally the handle nut. Do this on all four rods.
Run the handle nuts down finger-tight. Do not compress the spring any further. The spring is now captured.
Lower the trolley jack and rest the frame on the jack stand. Remove the trolley jack.
Undo the bottom of the damper (shock absorber) from the damper ball-joint or release the bottom of the ball joint from the lower triangle lever. Do not remove the damper from the captured spring assembly. It will contain the spring in the event of a failure during decompression.
It may be necessary to secure the top spring plate to the spring towers with C-clamps to before removing the fasteners. Residual pressure in the damper may try to push the assembly out before all of the hardware is removed.
Remove the nuts and bolts securing the upper spring top to the spring tower. Make note of where the bolts come from – they are not all the same length.
The assembly can now be lifted up and out.
Make note of the length of the compressed spring assembly. It will be easier to compress the new spring to the same length.
Decompress the spring by evenly unscrewing the top nuts. It is very important that the nuts be undone evenly to make sure the top spring plate does not bind on the threaded rods. Be very certain that the threaded rods are locked tightly to the bottom spring compressor plate and are not rotating with the upper handle nuts.
Assemble the new spring and damper to the compressor and compress it evenly to the earlier noted dimension and reverse the disassembly procedure to assemble. Do not compress the new spring any more than necessary.
