Hi guys,

I need to take out the suspension on the teg to replace the bumpstops and could use a recommendation on a good set of spring compressors to buy.

When I installed my shocks and springs I rented a set of spring compressors from AutoZone, but they were a bitch to use because of how thickness of the brackets. It was difficult at times to get them onto the spring, especially when the spring was compressed and because my springs are progressive.

Here's the type that I rented from Autozone that I'm I'm trying to stay away from:



The one I rented didn't come with that nice case, but they looked exactly like those compressors.


Any recommendations??? I've found some that are priced low, but their quality didn't seem that great.

 

we have this one and love it... http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=65549 but we also used it for 5 spring jobs so far.

you can always pick up this one ..... http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=45860

these things are great to use and much better then the ones you posted. i used the ones you posted and they cost 60 bucks to buy and they were the most difficult thing to use and was just a pain in my ass.

 

^^^ thanks for the recommendation.

I've seen those setups before and always thought it'd be cool to have, but I don't do enough suspension work that warrants the need for such a high end version. Instead something under $100 should do fine, hopefully. Sorry, I should have mentioned that in my original post.


EDIT: Didn't realize the second one was only $109. but after looking at the specs, the largest spring it can work with is 10", i dunno if that'll pose a problem or not.

 

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=43753

I recently bought this compressor to put the stock suspension back on the Audi. It worked well for the fronts. It should work with the Integra suspension.

 

I saw that one and it looks so easy to use because it's only one bolt to compress the spring.

Since you have one, where the two silver bars attach to the red bars, does that skinny red plate with the holes in it look flimsy to you? I would have expected that to be a little thicker since that's the only point of contact holding the compression tight for the red bars.

As you can tell, I'm kinda scared of buying a bad set of spring compressors because the last thing want to happen is have the compressor break after I've compressed the spring.

 

The tabs in the picture do look very thin, but I don't recall the actual piece like that. I'll check when I get home.

 

awesome, thanks dude.

 

i used the rental one from auto zone and didn't have any issues when i replaced the ones on my one car.

 

Those Autozone-type spring compressors are known as widowmakers at my auto tech school. If you MUST use them, be careful. A trick I learned from my friend a while back when I used to use those was, since your tires will be off anyway, put the tires at each end of the compressor so that way if the spring/strut assembly does shoot out, it will hit the tire first instead of your car/another car/object/you, yourself and break your ribs or worse.

Those springs are under a LOT of tension. Once you see one shoot out across the shop, you treat them like a loaded gun.

 

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=43753

I also have this one and I like it. I have used it for a number of BMWs. It should work well with your Teg.

Check this month Car and Driver, Road and Track or Motor Trend mags. They have 15% or 20% coupon for any single purchase at Harbor Freight.

 

i would be very careful on using that claw style spring compressor from harborfreight. i have progressive springs in my car and i could not get the compression i needed to get the springs closed enough. i just couldn't grab enough coils. so i reverted back to the original ones you posted. then after all that we bought the bigger one.

 

Exactly why I want to get a decent but relatively inexpensive set of quality compressors.

I've seen enough videos on youtube of people purporsely letting a spring compressor go or letting a spring fly off a shock assembly to know that it'll do some serious damage.

 

This is a spring compressor I made out of 2" plywood and 3/8" threaded rod, nuts and washers. It works really well, may not look pretty but is very secure. This works better than all the types of devices I've seen in the thread, there are some commercial spring compressors that are excellent but I'd imagine they cost in the hundreds of dollars.

One thing I like about this design is is it compresses the spring with the strut and top cap/mount and makes it easier since you don't need to compress as much since it's already in the grooves and aligning up everything is done before you compress.

As with any spring compressor I work perpendicular to the spring travel and wear gloves and glasses and use open end wrenches to tighten. The only disadvantage is you have to turn four nuts and keep the count straight so the tool stays parallel.

 

nice setup

 

I had one of these when I was in the biz, in addition to everything else shown in this thread, with the exception of wood block one. If I were to do it again, I would use nothing besides this, I've seen too many close calls with cheap spring compressors, if it's a cheap compressor or nothing, I'd pay someone else to do it. I've changed hundreds, if not thousands of struts/springs and a machine like the one in the link below makes the process very safe, fast and simple.

http://www.toolsurge.com/prodView.asp?sku=BRA-7400

 

That's very similar to the kinda of commercial spring compressor I've seen before. Completely framed in so the spring tangs stay straight and cannot slip. My design is no where as good as that but is better than the side and scissor compressors in this thread since there are no tangs and do not use the spring or strut body for alignment.

FWIW, I have a trapezoidal pattern on the bolt pattern so it is easier to put the spring/strut into the compressor from one side. That wider side is the side which i face toward the garage floor when I compress/uncompress.

One day I may fab steel or aluminum plates for my compressor but the 2" plywood does work very well.

 

Sly, sorry dude. I got home last night and got side-tracked, and totally forgot to check the tabs. I'll do that today.

 

No worries dude. I'm not in a rush.

I'll keep an eye out for your message this weekend.

 

my friend used to work in a shop and he didn't want to take the time to compress springs so he would just point the end into empty boxes and let it shoot off every time. I thought he was nuts.

 

Dare I ask how did he put the assembly back to together?

And your friend is an idiot.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYFOI_UsVxI

 

Well...yes, dangerous, but not stupid. I'm sure there are plenty of intelligent people on this forum that do things that are moronic in hindsight.
The lowering springs back in the 90's were short enough to put them on with the compressor. Sometimes, although I do think he had a compressor at the shop too, but he didn't like taking the time.

 

Ok...I just watched the video...yes very stupid.

 

After watching that video it reminds me folks are still applying for Darwin awards

 

Sly,

Here are the pics of the "claw" style spring compressor. I didn't have a caliper to measure the thickness of the tabs.

 

Thanks dude!

it is a rather skinny tab, and I'm surprised there are only two weilds holding that tab on.

I may have to spend a little more and get something a little nicer because having the shop do the repair in this case is stupid because I know how to do it. the amount of money I'd spend on them doing the repair is more than the cost of some of the nicer spring compressor's out there.

time to start looking at the nice spring compressor tools.

 

The light bulb turned on.

 

Yeah, they're kinda thin. But they're not holding the load/force. The silver bars are what is holding the load. The tabs are more like the "guides" so the silver bars won't slip off the rectangular arms.

 

This one is great! ive used it for years.. You just get prison arms trying to use it with more hand tools lOL..

 

I bought mine from sears. They are just like this. I have been using them for years on just about every type of spring and never had a issue. I you use your head when using them they are safe to use.

 

Those tabs are holding the force, they are what transmit the force from the silver tube section to the square frame section going to the claws. If a tab weld broke then the the screw jack may provide some alignment so hopefully the other claw pair would stay on. But those tabs are holding the force, none the less they are welded in what looks like 4 locations on both sides so it looks fairly robust.

 

We had such a hard time getting them onto my neuspeed springs. we just didn't have enough clearance between the coils on one end of the spring. We had to force the coils away from each other just a little bit to get the clamp into place.

Stop using a hammer to do the job. grease up the threads before you use it, it'll make a world of difference.

 

yeaaaa i shoulda used more lube..

 

Did you try positioning them further away from the ends so that there is less compression on the spring giving you more room? They dont have to be mounted all the way to the end.

 

yea, we ended up just moving the clamp position further down to coils that allowed us to squeeze the clamp in. What we noticed when we did that though is that since there are fewer coils between the position of the clamps, we didn't know if that did any damage to the spring since it's not compressing normally (one part compressing and another not compressing) and it make it a little more challenging to compress the spring since we had less play to work with.