That's EXACTLY the reason I won't work with it other than off the car where it is easy to work and see whatis happening. I've had a spring fly as well - it hit a building 30ft away and came back at a very high rate of knots - not recommended.

Mike

This spring was in a bench mounted compressor. The lad doing the job apparently hadn't located the clamps properly. Not a mistake he'll make again in a hurry.......

It gets even hairier when the clamps being used aren't up to it,I got the assembly out from under the car put it on the bench undid the top nut when one of the clamps decided to slip round!!! I had to pluck up the courage to continue all my mates walked briskly away.The hardest bit was undoing the opposite clamp without that slipping.I now use good quality clamps.

When swapping my heavy duty coil springs from my previous car to my latest I took the old ones off and put back on by hand with no compressor but the heavy duty ones are a force to be reconed with.Still at least my car doesn't sag at the back like so many other 240 estates.This is now the third car I have used these same springs on,Talk about monies worth.
Regards Brian.

I think I have read somewhere that you should always put a strap or wire around the spring compressors as a precaution. I must admit I forgot about that when I did the job recently on another car, but it had much smaller calibre springs.

Long ago in my student days I did the job on an Austin A30 without compressorsl. Several people sat on the front of the car, we released the nut, and then they got off one at a time. It still went with a twang though, and we had to take the bits to a garage to get it reassembled. It was a bit scary, and did teach me that proper tools sometimes have their place.

It's worse with torsion bars - the mechanic who serviced my cars in Renfrew had to do a Chrysler Alpine's front springs and watched as one of the bars drilled a nice hole in the wall of the building. After that he pointed people in the direction of the local Chrysler dealer if they wanted the front torsion bars changing: somethingto do with the building not needing anymore ventilation!

But a very impressive article (as usual) with clear photographs. The only question I have is: "What is a C-Spanner?"

A C spanner is a spanner shaped as a C with a hook on the end of it - this would fit into the square hole and grip it to turn it. Hope you can understand what I'm on about - they are commonly used (smaller size on bikes) Will try and photo one if you are not sure.

Mike

Yes - I know exactly what you mean; but are they a dealer-only part, or can you buy one from a good motor factors/tools specialist? I assume the Owners Club has one in its special tools lending facility.

I must admit I tend to use a drift or Stillsons to undo - always works ok for me and not a frequent enough job to bother on investment as far as I am concerned.

Mike