You have to take out the shocks in order to take out the springs, so if its
a good time for front shocks, put them in now. I bought new ones right
at advance auto for low $$, KYB GR-2. Not the best, but decent gas charged.
The stock springs are in there pretty good, but if you unbolt the lower
control arm
with a separate jack, carefully under it, you can lower and decompress
everything
and not need a spring compressor, and have plenty of room to put the new
stuff in.
You are talking about a fair amount of energy here, so be careful with those
fingers and hands! However, this is much less than a lot of other cars.
On many vehcles, it would be stupid not to use a spring compressor, I am
just
saying on the roadster you can get away without it if your careful.
While everything is apart and has no tension on it, make sure to wiggle
all ball joints and A arm bushings and make sure nothing is loose.
You will probably have to take off that side of the sway bar also if you go
this route.
The comp springs just lay in there, (no preload) and are therefore
easier than the stock ones to get
the lower arm lined up and bolted back in.
It is also a good time to take a hack saw to the rubber snubber and cut
about
half of it off, IAW the COMP manual, if you desire to do this.
I have pics of the spring replacement somewhere, E-mail me offline and I
will send them.
As long as everything is apart, its a good time to put a few shims in the
upper A arm if
you would like some negative camber to go with the comp springs. For a very
rough
estimate, 1/8 shims will give right around neg .75 deg if things were around
neutral
to begin with (about stock). There is a lot of difference between cars
after all these
years though!
Best Regards,
Jim
Chesapeake, Virginia
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