Re: Front spring replacement procedure

[Wallace White <wallace@remdesign.com>]

Eyvind -

When I was replacing my front strut inserts recently, I decided to replace
the strut bearings too, since there was a funny sound when turning that I
thought might be related. I left the driveshaft, ball joint, and
everything else attached, and disconnected the strut at the strut mount
and started compressing the spring. I spent several hours just getting the
spring compressed enough that I could finally get the strut bearing
swapped; in fact, it took so long that I chose not to fool with it on the
other side. 

With the special Audi spring compressor it would've been much better,
because space is very tight in there. With any compressor, you need to
orient it so that the threaded clamp is at the bottom and the thru-hole
clamp is at the top, so that the bolt doesn't keep extending up as you
tighten the clamps. On the compressor I used, that meant that the bolt
head was also at the top, which resulted in very tight access with a
wrench. If you use a compressor like that, I would consider using it
differently: reverse the bolt, so that the head is screwed right into the
threaded clamp and the other clamp can slide freely up and down the bolt.
Then use a nut on the bolt. Then you can orient the compressor as I did
(where the extra length of the bolt sticks out the bottom) but still
tighten from the bottom. Of course this requires that the head of the bolt
be kept from turning... there are other arrangements as well, all
involving an extra bolt and washer per clamp.

Back to your issue: I don't think you could actually change the spring
without removing the strut completely from the car. The front suspension
will not go down very far, even after the strut is dettached at the top.

By the way, the old strut bearing seemed to be in acceptable condition,
though under my weight it didn't turn nearly as smoothly as the new one.
The crossing-center steering sound did go away, though I'm not sure why.

- Wallace
  '87 5kcstq 159k

> I need to change the springs on my '87 5k. The rear went ok, really
> easy when I figured out how to undo the nut on the top of the shock.
> 
> But the front springs are harder. There is just not enough room to get
> it in/out without dropping the whole strut assembly, and with the
> drive axles, tie rods, stabilizer bars etc etc, is this a job I don't
> want to do. Is there any way of getting the spring in/out without
> dropping the strut? The problem is that the spring clamps extend too
> much upwards, so the whole ting becomes un-removable. Shorter clamps
> doen't work either, they are too short to compress enough.
> 
> BTW: On my dad's Toyota Camry, the spring/shock asembly are fastened
> by two big screws, so you can remove the whole assembly without even
> touching the drive axle/tie rod. I think the german men who designed
> the Audi system took a "schnaps" too much when drawing.. :-)
> 
> Please help me to avoid dropping the whole strut!
> 
> ES