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Removing spacers

XJ-Mayhem

NAXJA Member
NAXJA Member
Location
San Jose, CA
I am going to be removing the 1.5" spacers from my front 4.5" rusty's coils, and the very bottom leaf of the 6 leaf 4.5" pack. I've never liked how tall the lift was, but until I talked to a guy at rusty's the other day I didn't know what to do about the rear. I also hope this helps with my trac bar and make it less likely to break tre's in the future (scary).

What I think I am planning on doing for the coils, is jacking up one side of the axle, removing the tire, using two ratchet straps to hold the spring only as compressed as I can get it from the truck's own body weight (otherwise I don't know how to slowly release the straps if I were to ratchet the spring more) and jack stand the frame on this side, then drop the same side I just strapped back down as far as I can which I am hoping is enough to pull the spring out and then work the spacers off.
Then I will place the strapped spring back on the perch, jack the one axle side back up to meet the spring and keep jacking until the weight of the truck starts to compress the spring slightly on its own at which point I can safely and easily unstrap the ratchets from the spring and be done.
Then repeat on the other side.

Will I be able to jack one side of the axle up far enough to compress the spring enough to do this? I'll need to have the axle jacked up even further once the spacer is out to compress the spring the same amount too...

I've got the 4.5" rusty's kit with drop down brackets
 
Sounds somewhat dangerous compressing the springs to get them out and handling them like that.

I would disconnect the steering linkage, tracbar and see how far you can get the axle to drop down like that. Make sure the brake lines don't get pulled tight and possibly broken. If you have to, disconnect two of the control arms. Not sure if the upper or lower will give you more wiggle room, might even have to do both.

This way will probably be safer, and might even take just as much time as trying to figure out your "shortcut". Then when you are done, you can send your coil spacers to me so I can cut them down to about an inch and use them in my Jeep. HaHa.
 
Sounds somewhat dangerous compressing the springs to get them out and handling them like that.

I would disconnect the steering linkage, tracbar and see how far you can get the axle to drop down like that. Make sure the brake lines don't get pulled tight and possibly broken. If you have to, disconnect two of the control arms. Not sure if the upper or lower will give you more wiggle room, might even have to do both.

This way will probably be safer, and might even take just as much time as trying to figure out your "shortcut". Then when you are done, you can send your coil spacers to me so I can cut them down to about an inch and use them in my Jeep. HaHa.

Yeah I read a few threads in my search about ways to do it, and I figured a ratchet is safer than a regular spring compressor but it is still scary dealing with them compressed.

The thing is, I don't have jack stands tall enough or a jack tall enough to just straight up lift the front high enough for the axle to drop enough...I think.
I have a spare tire/rim I can set a jack on and I suppose use one of my front tire/rims for the same...but I will have to use a jack with a 4x8 ish block of wood stacked long ways from the jack to the front bumper and that seems really sketchy.

I was going to say if any one wants to buy them I'd let em go cuz I'ma broke and needs money :flame:
 
Jack the front up by the axle. Support the uni-frame with stands on blocks. Remove wheels for extra room to drop the axle.

If you do decide to compress the spring, I'd use a spring or strut compressor (although, the last strut compressor I used, has to actually have the strut off the car and in the device. Obviously, there must be different kinds.) instead of a ratchet strap. The strap isn't made for that, so you'd have to figure out how exactly to rig it up. Then there is more of a chance it could fail. Hopefully you have a parts store nearby that will rent out tools, cause then you could get the compressor and get your money back when you return it.
 
DO NOT use ratchet straps to compress a coil spring.

Jack up one side of the axle until the body starts moving up too. The other side should be dropped enough for you do work the coil out by hand... push it up the tower and bend the bottom out from above the axle, and pull/push/kick/whatever till its out. Getting it back in is just as easy, push it up the coil tower as far as you can and push up on the bottom of the spring to get it over the coil bucket... you may want to use a pry bar to help on the bottom there, don't worry you won't be compressing it enough to be dangerous.
But whatever you do, DO NOT use ratchet straps to compress a coil spring.
 
DO NOT use ratchet straps to compress a coil spring.

Jack up one side of the axle until the body starts moving up too. The other side should be dropped enough for you do work the coil out by hand... push it up the tower and bend the bottom out from above the axle, and pull/push/kick/whatever till its out. Getting it back in is just as easy, push it up the coil tower as far as you can and push up on the bottom of the spring to get it over the coil bucket... you may want to use a pry bar to help on the bottom there, don't worry you won't be compressing it enough to be dangerous.
But whatever you do, DO NOT use ratchet straps to compress a coil spring.

Thanks, I will try this first tomorrow. I won't use the ratchet straps.
This seems simple enough.

Also, I got my very bottom leaf out today...so now I have 5 in my pack. However, it doesn't seem that it's really sunk any more than it was before...I left my spare tire, winch, boat trailer spare tire, and jack all in the trunk to see if it helps settle it a little.
I planned on doing the front tomorrow, but I don't want to have a retarded stance when I am done :confused1

Can I take another leaf out of the rear?
 
You can't flex enough to unseat the coil, remove the spacer then flex the other side, remove the spacer and replace the spring and keep riding?

That's what I do to remove and replace my springs.

Also, I have the 6.5" rustys leaves and I have removed the bottom two leaves to make mine sit level (not counting the overload). You didn't remove the VERY bottom leaf did you? The shortest one is an overload spring. You don't want to remove that one. You want to remove the second from the bottom one.
 
You can't flex enough to unseat the coil, remove the spacer then flex the other side, remove the spacer and replace the spring and keep riding?

That's what I do to remove and replace my springs.

Also, I have the 6.5" rustys leaves and I have removed the bottom two leaves to make mine sit level (not counting the overload). You didn't remove the VERY bottom leaf did you? The shortest one is an overload spring. You don't want to remove that one. You want to remove the second from the bottom one.

:rattle: but I wana flex!

Haha. How should I remove the spacer first then?

Yeah, I took the very bottom shortest one out...when I was on the phone with Rusty's talking to them about it the guy told me to remove the very last one haha. It's about 14 inches long not accounting for the curve.
So I should put that one back, and take out the one right above that? Probably double its length.

I also found that the driver side pin that holds the pack together/centered in the perch had snapped, so I replaced it with a same thread/length/head size allen bolt and it seems to work fine.
 
I was asking if you could flex enough on something to unseat the coil and take it out? If you have short arms that might be a lil difficult. LAs with that amount of lift and it'd come right out of there. I can unseat my 6 inch coils no problem.

As long as it keeps the pack tight together and the axle located on the spring you're good to go.
 
I was asking if you could flex enough on something to unseat the coil and take it out? If you have short arms that might be a lil difficult. LAs with that amount of lift and it'd come right out of there. I can unseat my 6 inch coils no problem.

As long as it keeps the pack tight together and the axle located on the spring you're good to go.

Ah I misunderstood that, I thought the question mark at the end was directed at keep riding? haha.

I can look for stuff to flex on tomorrow, I don't know of a spot off the top of my head though. Yeah...I've got short arms but I suppose I'll try anyways because that seems the easiest/fastest way haha.

Okay good because I went ahead and replaced the other side as well.
 
You live in LA. I'm sure there are PLENTY of little imports rolling around that could be easily mistaken for RTI ramps with wheels :D
 
You live in LA. I'm sure there are PLENTY of little imports rolling around that could be easily mistaken for RTI ramps with wheels :D

:shhh: enough Fosters and I may actually do it hahah. To bad my buddy doesn't have his old Saturn any more, I drove up on the hood once with my 2wd F150...sure I could get further with the Jeep :viking:
 
do the ratchet strap thing, compress springs just a lil, just up body, and then keep compressing springs until they come out. take out spacer, put spring back in, lower body, onto springs and then uncompress springs onto the body. safest way i can see doing it
 
do the ratchet strap thing, compress springs just a lil, just up body, and then keep compressing springs until they come out. take out spacer, put spring back in, lower body, onto springs and then uncompress springs onto the body. safest way i can see doing it


I'll look for your name in the Darwin Award nominations.


DO NOT use ratchet straps to compress a coil spring that's strong enough to hold up thousands of pounds of Jeep. The ratchet strap will either break or more likely it will slip off the coil, causing the coil to shoot off in some direction and you'd better pray you ain't in its line of fire.
DO NOT compress a coil spring with a ratchet strap.
Was that clear enough or should I say it again?
 
I just removed my spacers from the front of my heep with RC 4.5" springs. Basically what I did was to jack it up on one side until the tire came off the ground just touch to unload the spring as much as possible. Then I took a wood chisel and cut in into two pieces. Wasn't the easiest but, wasn't really all that hard either.

Good luck with your :repair:
 
Why don't you just unbolt the tackbar, then the shocks, then the control arms until you can get the axle low enough for the springs to come out?

I did it with 5.5" lift, but I had an OTA trackbar mount and control arm drop brackets. I had to unscrew the brake lines from the body also, but it's really not all that hard.

Do it safe and do it right even though it might take a little longer.
 
I figured a ratchet is safer than a regular spring compressor but it is still scary dealing with them compressed.

The thing is, I don't have jack stands tall enough or a jack tall enough to just straight up lift the front high enough for the axle to drop enough...I think.
no no no dude, dont do that. your gonna end up in the obituaries. a ratchet strap is designed to secure cargo, an automotive coil compressor is specifically designed for this job, and can still barely manage to do it safely, and you want to cut corners? 90% of ratchet straps are a twitch away from failure, dont let it fail with a large coil compressed under pressure...
drive to someone with coil compressors and jackstands.
 
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