Hello people, just got the new coil spring perches in that will accept the new sway bar ive got, ready to put on this coming weekend, but before i do I wanted to run this by some people that might have messed with coil springs before, here is what im thinking, I support the front end with jack stands on the frame, then lower the axle down with the floor jack til it wont drop anymore, is all the compression off the coils at this time so I can undo the top retaining bolt ? without the spring flying out. I just figured id ask so I dont get suprised by a flying spring. any comments would be appreciated, thanks

 

They'll lift right out of a 2WD, no compression left in them at that point. With a 4WD, YMMV.

 

The only other thing I would recommend is removing the shocks. Often, at full droop, the shocks are actually what's holding the axle up, so the springs may still have some compression to them.
Good luck, and be careful! Those springs gan be dangerous!

Chuck

 

do one side at a time (keep one coil and shock bolted in). One the side you are doing, look to see if the coil is reatined by a bolt in the center at the bootm or just held in place with the top clip (sorry, I don't remember what your post said your truck was -- my experience is that late 70's and early 80's springs are bolted in the center at the bottom, but I just replaced the spring in my 95 and they just set on the I Beam in a plastic perch), take the shock out, lower slowly. You can actually undo the bolt holding the reatiner clip befor lowering (I did), If it is bolted at the bottom and you do not want to undo the retaining clip before lowering, just lower it enough to take the tension off the spring, but not low enough that the axle/ibeam hangs on the spring. ANyway in my experience, these are easy to do and will not go flying or anything as you might expect -- but if you are really worried about it either rent a spring compressor, just to hold the tension in place, or take a chain and loop it around the coil and through the floor jack (get a good loop on the spring, cause the chain will naturally slip down the coils. HTH Charlie.

 

 

Hello ppl, just wanted to let everybody know how easy it was to replace the coil spring perches on my 94 f-150 4x4 with new ones that would accept a swaybar, most ppl probally already know how to do it but this is for the ones that dont, like I was, This is how I did it. Do 1 side at a time, I used a floor jack to lift the truck under the axle, place a jackstand under frame, removed wheel and disconnected the lower shock from the raduis arm, disconnected the top spring retaining bolt, then slowly lowered the floorjack til the coil spring just flopped out to the side, took off the center nut inside the coil and it was done, only problem I had was I needed a 1 1/8 deep well socket that I had to run out and buy, both sides took about 1 1/2 hours to finish, Ive spent more time fighting with brakes,lol, just thought id share my experience with everybody that might be comtaplating this job. Thanks to all that gave me some pointers on this project.

 

Where'd you get the perches, and how much?

TIA

Raul
w/ 81 F-100, I6, SROD, Carter 1V non-feedback carb, no A/C, no PS, no PB, but it gets me where I need to go

 

The Ford dealer was the only place I could find them, one of them was $43.00 and the other was $15.00, didnt make much sense, there isnt much difference between them. Took 2 weeks to get them, the dealer said they were special order since they hardly ever sold them.

 

Sounds like when I went to the junkyard to my exhaust manifolds for a 400 engine. He wanted fifteen dollars for the left side, but insisted on a hundred for the right. I guess he thought the right side was made out of gold.

 

you know its getting bad when the junkyard wants more than the dealers does, the only difference between them other than being offset in different directions is that one of them was about 3/8" taller than the other. That was it, even the dealer told me they didnt understand the price differnce, go figure.