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Found this in the Chatroom. I'll PM Bill Van Eck and point him in the direction of this thread for answers.


[Bill Van Eck] 3:47 am: I have a 39 Packard business mans coupe. I have pulled the car down to the frame and I am restoring the car from the ground up. I need help on how to compress the new front coil springs. I have tired to compress one and broken my spring compresser and sent parts flying across the room. So if anyone knows how to compress these springs down to fit I sure could use the help.

Bill,

To broadly answer your question, I've helped my friend Wade do this on his '39 110 Sedan '37 Super 8 Club Sedan and my '41 120 Coupe using spring compressors. Use a smaller sized bolt or rod to locate the under front cross member mid mounting point of the lower suspension arms and strong compressors, a floor jack may help too at times. It was just slow careful work, along with some persuasion on occasion. On both these cars the engines and bodies were still installed. If you're trying to do so on a bare frame I suppose there may not be enough weight on it to hold the structure down?

EDIT above - corrected car on which spring compressor used.

I have done this also on my Packard which is a '47 Super Clipper so I am not sure if it would work on a 120 which has as somewhat different suspension. The engine and body were on the car so I don't know if this will work. I jacked the car up high enough to let the lower control arm down and blocked up the car frame. I then placed the jack under the lower control arm and removed the bolts holding the inboard bushings I then lowered the controol arm and let the spring decompress. Next I placed the new spring in the tower with the lower end in the control arm pocket and then using a floor jack under the control arm I jacked the lower control arm up until I could bolt it back to the frame. This compressed the spring sufficient to allow me to align the holes for the bushing bracket in the frame using a heavy punch and then bolted the the control arm back on the frame. I chained the spring to the frame to keep it from popping out and doing damage. Possibly not the safest method but the spring sits so high up in the tower I couldn't get the spring compressor to work.

If the frame is bare (no body, nor engine) then place a chain under a floor jack and hook each end of the chain to the frame. Jack it into position. Then connect the upper control arm to the frame and/or steering knuckle.

Need to be careful with this operation to watch it closely to make sure everything is going straight and not trying to slip off.

Bill,

Good to talk to you earlier today in the Chatroom.

Although I said I had pictures of using the spring compressors I found I only had one and that was on Wade's '37 Super 8, same type of suspension so if it works with that, it'll work with your '39. I've also taken the liberty of copying part of what we talked about in the Chatroom relating to your situation and reposting it here, being: "[Bill Van Eck].....I was checking with a trucking company here in town about having them compress the springs on a press and then steel strapping them to the correct size and then after I have it in place I would just cut the strap......[Ozstatman].......I suppose you could do it that way, but I'd save it for a last resort" Reason being, there may be others who have views, thoughts or advice on using that procedure.

And another thing, and it would be remiss of me not to ask you this, if I didn't my reputation on PackardInfo would be tarnished! Could you please include your '39 120 Business Coupe in the Packard Owner's Registry, together with a pic, any known history and how you acquired it?

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Because there are so many "experts" in here who get so ugly when their nonsence is corrected, I rarely come back in here.

But when I see something that is clearly LIFE THREATENING, I will try and help out.

You do NOT try and service a "Safty-Flex" front end with a spring compressor. There is ONLY one "right" and "safe" way to get those coils in and out safely. You stand an excellent chance of getting KILLED using ANY kind of spring compressor. Even if you found a strong enough one, there would be no way to get em up into the "spring towers".

The way to safely remove and install the front coil springs on a Safety-Flex front end is simple. DO IT THE WAY THE FACTORY DID. Very simple. DIS-ARM those monsters by LEAVING THEM ALONE - YOU DONT TRY AND COMPRESS THEM.

For those of you re-building a Saftey-Flex equipped Packard correctly, you already know how to do it - you bought your front-end bushings from STEELE, and read the instructions that came with them ( I am presuming they still send out the instructions I wrote for them some thirty years ago ).

Here's the "drill" to SAFELY remove and install the coil springs from a "Safety-Flex" equipped Packard - again - DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RESTRAIN THE SPRINGS WITH ANYTHING

TO REMOVE COIL SPRINGS

1) Jack up the car, remove the front brake backing plates.
2) LOWER the still "armed" suspension onto two 2 x 4's, (one each side) so that the bottom of the knuckles bear the weight of the car.
3) remove the bolts that retain the "lower inner" and "upper outer" control arm bushings. (the still "armed" spring is retained and still harmless, restrained by the un-bolted but still contained lower-inner portion of the lower control arm AND the "torque arm ball" at the rear portion of the front suspension (DO NOT TAKE THAT REAR BALL OFF UNTIL ALL THE STEPS BELOW ARE COMPLETE, AND THE SPRING "dis-armed").
3) JACK the car up. As you jack the car up, the spring gradually "dis-arms", as the main lower control arms with the bushings start moving outboard from the center frame support. When you get the car high enough, the springs will be completely dis-armed, and harmless, and the lower control arms will simply fall away from the center frame support without ANY dangerous spring load.

TO INSTALL SAFETY FLEX FRONT SPRINGS.

1) Get the car up high enough to slide the complete lower suspension with the dis-armed springs, under the car.
2) Lift the inner ends of the lower control arms up so that they are able to start sliding into position on the center frame support, as you lower the car, which, of course, will gradually "arm" the springs.
3) When the inner portions of the control arm bushings get where they belong, you can slide the retaining bolts back into them ( may take a alignment/drift pin to "center" them - dont damage the threads on the bolts!).
4) when the weight of the car has fully armed the springs, the outer upper control arm will alighn up to be bolted back into position.

Pete. Your procedure assumes there is an engine and body on the frame. What if springs are installed to a bare chassis (no engine , no body)???

Peter ,That's more or less how I replaced the springs on my '47 S.C. (although not a Safe-T-Flex) and other independent front suspension cars as explained in my first post. I also cautioned that the springs should be chained or possibly wired to the frame in the unlikely event the spring comes loose while under compression. I won't bother telling you how important that is from experience. I also edited my first posting as I noticed that it was not explained well the first time but essentially the same method as yours. On the '47 Spring compressors would not work in any event.

INSTALLING 'SAFTEY-FLEX' COIL SPRINGS cont:

In anwer to your question as to how to "arm" and "dis-arm" those dangerous monsters safely, if you don't have the weight of a complete car to help compress them as you raise and lower the car.

You got me ! I have NO clue ! I was trained at a Packard dealership almost SIXTY YEARS AGO ! I apologize - I should have explained that was how the FACTORY tech. rep. taught the dealers how to do it. So of course they were dealing with complete "ready for the road" cars.

I could only make a wild guess and presume you lay some strong timbers or steel plate across the frame where the engine would eventually be, and load it up with weight approximating a complete car.

See - even I do not "know it all" !

p f h

Hi Clipper
Good point - you may be right as to "tying down" a coil spring on the later models. I NEVER took a post-Safety-Flex suspension apart, so I have NO clue how to do it safely.

Again, assuming you follow the proceedure I was taught, meaning, DO NOT DISCONNECT THE REAR LOWER TORQUE ARM BALL, the spring cannot go ANYWHERE - impossible!

Again, this instruction ONLY applies to so called "Safety-Flex" suspensions on the Jr. Packards starting in '35 production, and continuing thru '41. And the "big" or "Senior" Packards from '37 to '42.

Dont listen to me on anything later - listen to Clipper !