[s-cars] Help! Front spring removal
Tom Mullane
tmullane at snet.net
Mon May 30 10:38:46 EDT 2005
Eugene,
I have done it both ways, and I can tell you that what you are doing is the
worst "shortcut" in the world. You are risking damage to the brake line, CV
boot, and fender paint, and your (and your wife's) dental work. The only
time that I succeeded in removing springs in this method was on a parts
car...and it wasn't pretty. Stop before something bad happens.
We just did this the conventional way on Kevin Day's car last weekend. Sure
there was plenty of stuff to remove, but it was a walk in the park compared
to wrestling the springs out on the car. Wisely, he also took the
opportunity to clean up the ABS sensors and replace the CV boots.
Tom
Date: Sun, 29 May 2005 23:01:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: Eugene Yen <tbickle99 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [s-cars] Help! Front spring removal
To: s-car-list at audifans.com
Message-ID: <20050530060133.55400.qmail at web30512.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
I'm in the middle of replacing the original shocks and springs on my
'95.5 S6. I searched the archives, and a couple of folks have said that
they removed the front springs without removing the struts.
Sooo, I decided to take this approach with the front end. I removed the
front shock, compressed the spring as far as I could with my spring
compressor, and I had my long-suffering wife stand on a long pipe to lever
the sway bar down as far as possible (the axle shaft is touching
the subframe). However, I still don't have enough clearance to remove
the spring. The strut housing will not swing out far enough to free the
spring.
Is there some trick that I'm missing here?
The only things I can think of doing at this point to gain enough movement
in the strut housing are either:
1. Disconnecting the tie rod.
2. Removing the axle bolt.
Are either of these approaches viable options? If not, what do you guys
suggest?
Also, if removing the axle bolt is recommended, I have another
question: The car is currently on jack stands with both front wheels
in the air, so I can't loosen the axle bolt with a big breaker bar per
Bentley's recommendation. Can I get away with using an impact wrench on
this bolt? I'm afraid that I might shear off the bolt head with an impact
wrench (maybe I'm just paranoid).
Thanks in advance,
Eugene
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