I should title this "Mistakes Were Made" while replacing my shocks and springs.
I thought I'd done my research and had all my ducks in a row. I ordered shocks and springs from RockAuto. (Should have ordered the insulators.) I found
One piece strut spring compressor
at my local autozone and rented it. I had everything in hand ready.
On the given day I jacked up my Tahoe and settled the front onto some sturdy jack stands. I wanted to hurry because I was getting Service Suspension warnings and had looked under my tahoe and saw my rear shocks. I decided to start with the fronts because they were the most likely to cause me trouble. I pulled the strut out of the right front and fought to get the spring compressor in place. It wouldn't span but about 3 coils and I started cranking it down. When it wasn't going to go any farther I thought it was enough. I quickly found that my box wrenches weren't going to get much grip. Okay, I'll use my impact wrench with a socket since I don't care if I damage these old shocks. I'll work something out to get it back together. I put my impact onto it (1/2" drive Kobalt battery powered unit because my 60 gallon compressor is down and I couldn't use the air gun) and bumped the trigger a few times. Oh did it come apart. Not the nut on the top but the threaded shaft down inside the shock. Since the spring wasn't actually compressed enough that was ejected quickly along with a river of oil. Maybe I should have grabbed a magnet to pick that up???
Well at least it's apart. I fought the spring compressor off the spring and then fought to get it onto the new spring. Same 3 coil span. Hm. I started running that down and though the nut on the compressor was still turning it appeared my spring was getting longer. That's when I realized the compressor was bending over backwards. Oh yay! That meant that one end was flared out too much to get the spring off that way and the other was compressed. I reversed the gun to release. Ah. The bend is permanent, the flare is permanent, the spring isn't going to come out of there easily. On to my trusty 35 year old Harbor Freight hydraulic press. I managed to squash something enough to pry the spring loose. Then I laid the new spring next to the old spring and realized they were different and the new one was both longer and much more stout.
Well dang. I need to put something back together so I reused the spring. Using the press to compress the spring and get things back together and tried to reinstall. Okay, lesson XX. Those 3 bolts on the top of the strut aren't an equilateral triangle - it only goes in one way. When I rotate it the right way now the bottom of the strut won't line up. Using various tools I rotated the bottom to line up and bolted it in. I finished putting it all back together.
Next the left side. It should be noted that copious amounts of penetrating oil have been applied to all the fasteners. I undid the 3 nuts on top of the strut and because my battery powered impact gun is both heavy and too unruly to use I grabbed a 3/8" ratchet and went to undo the bottom bolts. I locked onto the first bolt and started pushing when I slipped off. I thought. Instead the head of that bolt snapped off before I even started applying pressure.
Well, no problem. There's two of those bolts holding, oh, the bottom of the front strut on which the weight of the vehicle rests. Happily the second one fought some but came out. Time to start on this one. With lessons from the right side still fresh in my mind I tried hard to do this one right. I knew from the start that I would need a different spring compressor so I borrowed the wife's car and took my strut and new shock along. The idea was to find a shop that would do it for me. No such luck on Saturday. I picked up a different spring compressor from O'Reilly Auto Parts and headed home.
More to come.
