Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire so how many of you use spring compressors and replace your struts

Just did my son's front struts on his 2020 GMC Sierra a couple months ago. Went to Autozone and got the loaner spring compressors for nothing and did the job. Seemed a little sketchy at first but everything worked as advertised and got the job done in no time and returned the compressors to Autozone in good condition and not bloodied.

I would probably do it again and may need to soon on my 2015 Silverado which is going to need shocks all around soon...

shops here want $500 to change out the struts. they all have more work than they can get to. I'll just buy the preassembled.

I have done both ways. Not worth the effort to not buy spring loaded struts and you don't save that much money.

Why so soon? Lift kit?


Clyde

I've done a few. Pretty easy with an air gun. Don't be an idiot and stand in the line of fire should the spring compressor come loose. The problem with the preloaded struts is the schit chinese springs are whatever spring rate they felt like putting in there. Oftentimes, they'll ruin the ride of whatever vehicle you're installing them into. Friend put a set in his wife's car and it rode like a 1 ton truck because the coils were so stiff. Took them back out after a week.

Son was down from MIT/ Cambridge two weeks ago for a vacation with us at the NJ shore. Bought him a used VW Touareg (SUV) for up there in the winter. Pretty nice vehicle but "very" over-engineered.

Broke a rear spring on the way down riding the "beautiful" New Jersey Turnpike. Can't buy a quality spring/strut set for it , only cheap Chinese sheidt, or factory separate parts. Had to buy the factory springs and some OE Bilstein struts and use the spring compressors and impact wrench at my place. Had I had the time, I would have definitely sent the removed originals and the new parts to a shop for swap out, but my boy had to be back up north the next day after vacation. Worked out ok and he made it back safe and on time.....

Safer to let a shop do it with a wall mounted strut machine, but if your careful and have the right tools, sometimes its not too bad. You may save some time and money.

Take care

Did it last week to put Bilstein 5100s on my Tundra.

I always make sure to keep the top of the compressed strut pointed away--same with bottom half, never had an issue.
C-clamp was for seating upper a-arm joint...
A quality spring compressor isn't expensive and it's an easy job with an impact wrench/gun. Toughest part is seating strut unit in lower arm. Gotta relieve the lower control arm pressure -- create space with a breaker bar.

I'll keep the $$$ shops want to do this job.

Advanced age and poor health make letting a good shop do the work my only option. Back in the day I did all my own work and enjoyed doing it.

I "rented" the spring compressor from Orielly last time I did a set. No biggie.

He didn't like the soft , bouncy ride. The 4600 Bilstein are much better without giving up a decent ride on the street...

Buying them already assembled sure does make it simple. I went that route with Old Man Emu fronts on my old Tacoma and they were a fairly easy install in the garage.

All I could find were strut cartridges only for my '97 Saab 900SE. Preassembled is not always an option. Not really looking forward to this replacement.

It's not a big deal. You can do what's needed.

They make “safe” strut spring compressors that have small u-bolts on each arm to capture the end spring coils ... four total for a pair of compressors.

I remember as a teenager helping my uncle harvest wheat. The clutch on his combine got stuck and he had to remove a large steel canister that held a big coil spring under compression. He kept telling us to back up, back up while he unscrewed the center bolt holding the canister to the bell housing. BAM! Everything went flying, parts flew at least a hundred feet after bouncing around inside the combine!

Took a while to find all the parts then go to a shop to compress the spring back into the canister.

It was several years back but the same basic experience. It was a Jeep TJ that I was installing an Old Man Emu lift kit on and used ratchet straps. It really wasn’t that bad but it’s something that I wouldn’t deal with again.

Gotta put new struts on my fusion this weekend. I use Detroit axle alot and so far have been pleased.

Struts are loaded. I buy their stuff for multiple vehicles. If I had a compressor it would be different but I don't. I just swap them out.

We came out of the house one day when we were teens and some Pacific Islander lady was down the street with a flat tire. She had the van jacked up and the tire already off when she suddenly just lost her schitt! She started swinging that tire iron like Babe Ruth! She was beating the hell out of the suspension of the van. On her fourth or fifth go she swung low and hit the coil spring which shot out from under that van and landed about two houses down from her. With an astonished and bemused look, we all busted up laughing until she got up, tire iron still in hand, and headed our way. We never did decide if she was coming for us or the spring as we piled in the truck and headed to the gas station down the road. When we came back about a half hour later, the van was still there but she was nowhere to be found. To this day I’m still terrified of Tongan women!

At least on a Toyota you can do them on the vehicle. Raise the truck, get a jack under the lower control arm, disconnect the lower ball joint, tie rod, and sway bar, mark and loosen the lower control arm adjusters. remove just the center strut nut, leave upper strut mount in place and slowly lower jack, remove lower shock bolt reverse procedure with new parts as needed, relace lower shock bolt, slowly raise jack while clocking spring to fit in upper mount, raise just enough to install center nut, then tighten everything back up.

This.

I changed the front on my ford PU and it was cheaper to buy the spring/strut new than to change them out.

Fast too.