Can I use spring compressors (Car) in situ??

What’s the warranty situation on doing this?

Just thinking it’s not a cheap toy if there was some issue with the drivetrain and motor down the line , wouldn’t be much fun if they had a get out clause.

Not sure what all the fuss is about. Yes, Spring compressors can be dangerous but so is jacking your car up.

I can remember firing a spring across a barn/workshop floor once to see how far it would go.

We used a hydraulic press for the next one.

I own a pair of spring compressors . It’s one job I probably wouldn’t do again, it was absolutely terrifying. Torquing down a big spring to roughly half of it’s uncompressed length using a half drive socket set and lots of chainsaw oil was bonkers.
Problem is without a massive bench vice you have to hold the spring to counter the rotation forces and that means putting yourself in harms way.
Ok , so the Merc is a huge , heavy car and probably has a heavy duty spring but you could see the wear on the threads of the compressors as it tightened up even with a heavy oil .

Problem is without a massive bench vice you have to hold the spring to counter the rotation forces and that means putting yourself in harms way.

This is why compressing them on the car works well.

Your starting from a pre compressed state with the weight of the car on. As well as them being restrained to counter the force of you compressing them

Similar story to others from me. I own a pair of the threaded spring compressors, aka suicide sticks. I’ve successfully used them to replace all 4 springs on my old 2.0 petrol B3 Passat in the past, however, modern cars are heavier and the springs are more substantial to cope with the extra mass.

3 or 4 years ago my Peugeot 307 1.6 HDi snapped a spring. I ordered a pair off Ebay with the intention of DIY replacing them, but when they were delivered they were huge! I double checked they were the right part for the car and promptly booked it in to my local garage for them to replace. The thought of compressing these springs was not something I wanted to entertain. Paying a garage £120 to do it for me was money well spent.

There are better types of spring compressors on the market now that clamp more of the spring, but I’m not sure you’d be able to fit them with the strut assembly in situ.

I’ve got access to all the proper tools. I’d still pay someone else to do it.

(Actually i wouldn’t, i trust the guy who did the chassis tuning.)

This is why compressing them on the car works well.

If I could get the brand new spring to magically appear on the car then there’s enough space in the wheel arch to compress them. In fact the preload is probably enough that hardly any compression is necessary. Unfortunately I was dealing with a snapped spring.
So zero pre load on the strut, just removed from car and unscrewed.
The brand new spring that I had to refit however, that needed alot of shrinkage to get it short enough to enable the top nut to take a thread

The bodge is to use multiple wraps of fencing wire on opposite sides of the spring with the weight of the vehicle still on the suspension. Then jack the vehicle up and the spring will stay compressed. Leave it over your lunch break to see if it’s going to explode, then you can remove the spring. Treat the compressed spring like a bomb that might explode at any moment.

Or just pay someone else to do it. My life is much less exciting now than when I was a teenager.

i sit here feeling lucky that over the years i have missed death on many occasions… i didnt realise spring compressors where considered such lethal weapons!

Mate has one simillar to this  only a bit more heavy duty and ex MOD. I have borrowed and used it with confidence many times. Prior to him getting that I used the threaded rod types many times succesfully but always encountered a bit of slippage and was on my nerve ends while using it.

The upright garage types aren’t totally infallible. Once was in a local garage with my car when a spring flew out of the compressor, across the workshop and left a dent in my car door.

So it seems that, following a wheel ON peek, I probably won’t be able to get compressors in whilst the shock is in situ.

Hmmm….

Hmmmmmmmmm….

Will pop the wheel off and actually measure up… Pants..

Another option is seeing if there’s somewhere on the hub carrier I can use my trolley jack to squish the shock up whilst the car is on axle stands….

Hmmm…!

DrP

DrP

@jordan ….

I’ve literally been looking at that one today! Not a bad shout for 70 quid…

I’ll need one IF I can get the shock out (to swap the springs)..

DrP

@DrP

It would be possible via lifting the hub – the issue being that once the bottom ball joint is split then theres nothing to constrain the strut which is now compressed and under load. It might need a few ratchet straps to hold it in place until the jack is lowered.

That’s what I was worried about…

Easy to compress safely when it can only go up or down..

Once ball joint off, it’s likely to roll the trolley jack away at about 90° at 60mph!

DrP

Yes of course you can and I regularly use them to do ball joints. I do have a modified pair where I cut down the threaded rod, because when fully wound down the rod would hit strut tops. So in other words access can be tricky with some vehicles, obviously some being worse than others.

Bare in mind separating some ball joints (especially when you don’t want to damage the seal like with a pickle fork) can be PITA, when jacked up and without the standing height workshop levers! Also some are impossible to do without dropping the sub frame!

Never had a problem using my spring compressors. They are nice heavy forged ones with juicy threaded rods which will out last me!