I need to replace the spindle on a 2000 Expedition. The service manual says to remove the shock and use a coil spring compressor. With the car on jackstands why can you just use a floor jack to compress the spring and then change out the spindle?

Is it dangerous to do it that way?

Thanks!
Jay

 

Anytime you are working with coilsprings it's dangerous. I'd try to put a safety chain or something around the spring to keep it from kicking out if you do it that way.

 

you have to open up the whole assembly to get the spindle out since the upper ball joint comes down through the spindle, and the lower ball joint comes up through the spindle. You need to decompress the spring and break the ball joints loose.

one alternative is putting the floor jack under the LCA (lower control arm) and remove the inner LCA bolts and lower the arm down slowly with the jack and loosen the spring tension up that way

 

Thanks - now it make sense - I did not think about one going down the other up. Looks like I will just borrow the spring compressor anyway from the parts store and compress the spring.

 

Update - just finished replacing the spindle. Borrowed a pitman arm puller and coil spring compressor from Oreilly's. Followed the service manual instructions - put a bottle jack under the lower control arm to support it. Broke loose the top ball joint at which time the spindle just swung free.

The manual said to remove the shock at this point but with it swinging free I went ahead and broke loose the tie rod end and the lower ball joint. Put on the new spindle and reversed removal steps. Only thing I had to do was raise the bottle jack slightly when I was attaching the upper ball joint to get it down through the hole in the spindle.

Torqued everything down and done. The car was supported on jack stands the whole time.

So - I did not compress the spring or remove the shock. All in all it was a pretty easy job. Maybe a 6 out of 10.