The task took me twice as long as I anticipated. There were numerous challenges. First of all the shock removal took some extra time and persuasion to free up the two fittings on the bottom of shock that refused to free up after the nuts were removed. The mounting arrange seems rather complex to me but I am sure it has a sound engineering basis? The next issue was the spring compressor. The tool I had rented didn't actually work out too well because the spring diameter was too small to appropriately insert the tool. I tried to jury rig it to but ended up spending a lot of time in trial and error fitting that turned out to be a fruitless endeavor. Fortunately, later on in the evening, one of my neighbors dropped by to see what I was doing and actually had the tool I was originally visualizing for the job. It was sitting on the shelf in his garage unused. I was very grateful for his gesture. During further disassembling of the components the cotter pins that hold the spring plate onto the wishbones became problematic to remove.. I would assume they haven't been removed for a long time which turned out to be another interesting challenge. They were badly rusted and broke off while I was trying to extract them. (5 out of the 6) requiring addition persuasion with a small drift and hammer.
After doing about 3 hours work with the chassis sitting on a jack with me kneeling on the cold cement of my driveway, I decided the best thing for me to do was to lift one side of the chassis higher and place it on a table saw stand to give me better access. I used a long bar of channel to lever up the chassis. The stand worked well resulting in a much better access to the underneath of the suspension-a problem solved.
All in all it was a 4-1/2 hour day to do a two hour job.....based on all my learning's yesterday and the loaning of the spring compressor tool today's work session should be more efficient and hopefully more expedient.
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