Doing front struts myself, is this a bad idea?

[gmckenzie]

I've got new front brakes (my rotors are warped) and Bilstein 4600's for all corners and am looking to do it all myself. I did ask my normal shop about replacing the front springs if I brought in my strut assemblies, and got some lamed assed answer about not using customer supplied parts, so I went and bought a HD Spring Coil compressor tool from Princess Auto (Canada's Harbour Freight).

It's their 2600lb version.

 

I've no issue with everything else, but is this a bad idea to swap the front shocks myself?

 

It's my Easter weekend plans.

[CamGTP]

If the tool you bought is anything like the pictures below, it will be a struggle. The front coils are very large on these trucks, not many of the spring tools out there will go around the coil to grip it like they need to. Plus the massive amount of force it takes to compress the spring usually bends the rod and doesn't allow them to work right.

 

I've done regular car and small suv springs no problem but these trucks just didn't work with what I had. I took them into work or a shop and used the wall mounted spring compressor. Only takes a few minutes per side with those when just swapping the strut body over.

 

[gmckenzie]

That looks like the middle sized one they had. The one's I bought are heavier duty than these. They had light, medium and HD ones.

 

This is what I bought.

 

[Snowcamo]

Just take the factory struts off and have a local shop swap them. 50-100 bucks is totally worth the peace of mind. The ones pictured will bend when the spring compresses.

 

I love life do you?

 

On a Serious note: I used both types of rental spring compressors and both bent. The two thread types started bending and I said screw that. 

 

The clam shell style bent and the fing spring popped out at the wall.

 

It's not worth the PRIDE man. Let a shop do it.