Question about Putting Together new Spring/Shock?

was looking at how the spring compressor tool (from AutoZone) goes on the coil to compress it, and wasn't able to get the safety pin to go in place because the coil is to think. Then it hit me, do you start at the top of the coil (flat part) with the tool, get the pin in place and rotate it down the coil, hooking up the second part, and continue rotating down/around the coil till its in place and lock it down?

If so, how do you take it off once its assembled? I must be missing something on getting this tool to work with the safety pins.

Anybody please help me get this tool on correctly/safely before I kill myself.

Thx

 

Those safety pins are a good thing, but personally, I never had the patience to get em on, which was probably bad on my part. My question for you is...... Are the springs off of the shocks already? If so, yeah do like you desribed, and to get em off use a punch and a hammer. If not, and you're hell bent on getting the safeties on then tap em on with a hammer, or a hammer and a punch. They should have designed those things a lil better, but oh well. Just be careful, and good luck.

 

Mine were the same way...and I'm fairly certain it's the same way for everyone elses truck. The coils are just a tad too thick for those pins to push past them to lock it in place. I didn't use the pin. I also noticed in some of the write-ups I looked at before doing the process, they didn't use the pin either...so even though it was a bit of a safety concern...i at least saw that other people had done it without killing themselves that way.

 

I noticed that if I remove the pin from the hole, put the tool on the shock, tighten done and then stick pin in hole from inside of shock..out, I can get it in about half way and it seems somewhat secure. I probably could hammer it in further, but would be afraid of not getting it back out.

I will give it a shot removing the stock springs and see how it goes before putting the OME coil on the 5100's.

If ant one has pics or how to threads on using these, I am all ears.
Thx

 

tip: use lots of wd-40 or oil to lube the threads on the spring compressors...you wouldn't believe the difference it makes (whether you're using an impact wrench or not).

The only other thing i can think of to tell you is when you position the spring compressor onto the coil spring...make sure the end of the spring compressor that you tighten is pointing to the bottom end of the shock/strut assembly. It makes it a lot easier this way.

In other words, the end of the spring compressor that you attatch your wrench or impact wrench needs to be pointing to the bottom of the shock.