On Thu, 6 Jan 1994, Randell Jesup wrote:
>
> Concerning Scott's mention that MGB's are designed to not need
> spring compressors: The same applies to Sprites/Midgets. I've removed
> a number of springs from Sprites with just a floor jack. The spring is
> under 0 compression long before it has any chance to pop out (not suprising
> given the weight of a sprite). Reverse to install.
Indeed one can take a Sprite spring out by putting a floor jack under the
A-arm, unfastening the upper trunion (trunion is a british term for
anything that does not have a real name) from the shock lever/upper arm,
and lowering the jack. This is way to do it if the objective is to remove
the stub axle.
However, if your object is to remove the springs, to change them and
nothing else, there is an easier way. The spridget front springs rest on
spring perches that bolt to the lower A arms. If this lower perch is
removed from the A arm in a controlled way, the spring can be decompressed
safely.
Get lengths of threaded rod about 4 in long, some nuts, washers, etc. The
rod should be the same diameter as the bolts that secure the lower spring
mount to the lower A arm, and the thread should be NC to save time
unscrewing. As I recall, two lengths of rod are sufficient, though the
insecure may use as many rods as there are bolts (I think the number of
bolts is 4, and 4 is the number of bolts, but I am working from memory and
I am pretty old and absent minded).
One at a time, replace bolts with threaded rod (exactly how will be
obvious) and nuts until the threaded rods replace the bolts and hold the
spring pans to the A-arm. It helps to put double nuts, snugged together,
near one end of the rod, so the nuts won't turn on that end. Turn a
single nut all the way up the other side, replacing the original spring
pan to A arm bolt, with 3 or 4" of rod extending below the spring perch.
A stack of washers under the nut helps get the nut down where an open end
wrench can easily be applied. When the threaded rods have replaced the
original bolts, unscrew the single nuts, working from side to side, and
letting the spring pan drop evenly away from the A arm until the spring is
no longer under compression. This is harder to explain than it is to do.
One may start with the suspension hanging free, in which case the amount
of nut turning is minimal but the spring is rather cockeyed and will
scrape its way through the hole in the A-arm. In fact, the spring is
probably under so little compression at this point that one could simply
remove the bolts that hold the spring pan to the A arm (check the manual;
this may even be the recommended way). However, my springs are nicely
painted, and I did not want to scrape them up. I left the car's weight on
the suspension, and used the threaded rods so the springs went straight up
through the holes in the A arms.
This is fast and easy; I replaced both springs without scratching them in
a couple of hours last time.
Disclaimer:
If you do this, and the spring finds some bizarre way to hop out and bang
you on the noggin, or in some other way damages you, someone else, or the
cat, then you did something wrong, and I refuse to be in any way
responsible for your inability to follow crystal clear instructions.
Anyway, I don't have anything worth attaching, except a LBC, and who would
want that?
Ray Gibbons
|