• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

spring compressor bolts

Share this page

77MidgetMkIV

77MidgetMkIV

Jedi Trainee
Country flag
Offline
I am looking to change out the front springs in my 77 midget, and would like to use slave bolts. I have been unable, however, to locate grade 5 or higher bolts of sufficient length with full thread. Anyone out there been through this? any help with removal methods would be appreciated, as well as a supplier with the right bolts/thread rod. I have been told that regular thread rod would not be strong enough, and that one should use grade 5 or higher. This is not the type of job that you want to be proven wrong about 1/2 way through.
 
Hi Mark, I ended up using the bolt method when I got my front end apart, but I wasn't aware you had to use a specific grade of bolt. I just used two 6" x 5/16" bolts from Home Depot, although I did have to dig through the bin a little to find ones that were threaded the whole length. The factory workshop manual didn't say anything special about the bolts either. Two tips: Get the wheel off the ground so the spring has minimum tension, and have the long bolts pointed down or they might get a little chewed up rubbing against the spring.

-Dave
 
Actually, if you're worried about how sturdy the bolts are, you could use 4 long bolts to do it. It might take longer, but as you said, better safe than sorry. I'm pretty sure the original bolts weren't anything special since a few of them snapped in half when I removed them. Hope this helps!
-Dave
 
Actually, that does help a lot. I had taken off one of the bolts to look at, and it didn't look like it was super high grade either (did not find any grade markings on it).
The car is already on stands since I am doing a complete brake job (lines, hoses, cylinders, etc etc)...I think I will go your route. I plan on chaining the spring in anyway, so if it lets go for some reason, it wont go far. Thanks for your input Dave!
 
Back
Top