Does anyone one know of any made especially to fit 1.9' and 2.25' springs. Tried the ones all my mechaninc friends have and can only get one hook over at each end and then they keep slipping round as i do em up. Also i cant fit the shock through with them on the spring. Jon

You shouldn't need spring compressors for coilovers !
Maybe you have the wrong length springs !

[Edited on 11/12/2006 by nitram38]

Yup. You shouldn't need a compressor. Just a C-spanner to wind up the seat if you're putting loads of pre-load on the spring....

Wind the seat to the bottom and take the top collar off and put the spring on, replace the collar and wind the seat back up to the spring. If the top collar isn't slotted wind the bottom seat right off.

If you do need compressors I found that the centre hole in a pair of old Ford brake discs just fitted over the collars on my 2.25 Spax and by putting 4 lengths of studding through the lug holes I had a set of slow but safe spring compressors.

Its actually for my scimitar, i got over zealous with an angle grinder getting the suspension apart (very rusted, and i had replacement bolts) and so needed to replace the shox, and was having difficulty putting the origianl springs onto the new shocks. They are however original springs and the shocks have the same travel etc. Im wondering if someone once put the wrong springs on. Needed to compress the spring by at least 2 inches before i could get it on...

I made a spring compressor for my SE5a which operates on the same principle as bikenuts' one. The original type springs are preloaded by a few inches so you need to make sure that whatever you end up compressing it with has enough extra movement to allow for this.

If you're interested I can take a photo of mine (if I can find it!) to show you what I mean.

~This is a little scary; I found out about the brake discs changing the shocks on a SE5 and I'm building a Stylus with a CA18DET from an S13. Which Scimy have you got? I from what I can remember the standard springs on the 5 had a couple of inches of preload - they have a tendency to go banana shaped, I switched to shorter but much stiffer springs.

yoiu're up the road from me - if you want to pop round, I have a pair (home made many years ago) that you can borrow.

Although the cut outs are curved, they still tend to slip when fit but are useable; I've done an MGB, escort and recently dolomite springs using them.

Wrap a tie wrap or undo a jubilee clip and redo it round the spring where the compressor holds to stop them from sliding round and bellying the spring so much.

Thanks for all the help but ive done it now with my mate winding it up and me holding everything in place. Which was dicey. And the scimmy is an Se5a 3.1v6, big valve head, weber 40IDF and tubular exhaust manifold. Its also bright lurid yellow but i got it cheap so hey! Maybe someone should make a special 2.25/1,9inch spring compressor. Could be a market for em?