Adjust front Bilstein 5100 without removal?

[fourfive]

I'm pretty sure I saw a thread on this several years ago & think there was also a youtube video showing how you can adjust the spring perch on the front bilstein 5100 without removing it from the vehicle or using a spring compressor. In the thread (or video) I think they used a floor jack to somehow compress the spring while the coilover was still on the vehicle. I didn't read the thread in detail to see how safe or efficient this method was but wondering if anyone knows what i'm talking about? I've searched for it but haven't found it yet.

 

[phattyduck]

You pretty much need to disassemble the shock assembly to pull adjust 5100's. There is a c-clip under the spring seat to hold it up, and the spring seat has to move ~2" or so to access it. That's a lot of spring compression...

You may be able to do the work without spring compressors, but you will need to disassemble the shock. You can rent spring compressors for free from many auto parts stores though - so why go through the hassle?

-Charlie

 

[UnderFire]

Absolutely would not recommend it. The rental cheapo spring compressors are also not something I'd recommend using to preload springs onto 5100's. They take loads of tension to compress, where the tools are meant to compress car springs with open low rate coils. Shop around, local shops tend to charge neighborhood of 40$ to reset the clips if you carry in the shocks and I wouldn't take the risk to save that little money.

Sent from my JSN-L23 using Tapatalk

 

[fourfive]

I think the way I phrased my question wasn't exactly what I was trying to ask. To clarify, I remember seeing a thread about disassembling & reassembling coilovers using a floor jack instead of a spring compressor. I linked a few YouTube videos similar to the one I saw several years ago. My question is if the floor jack method is used to disassemble the coilovers to raise the c-clip, would you still be able to reassemble it using the floor jack? In the videos they show both disassembly & reassembly but wondering if this would still work if the c-clip is positioned higher since the spring would have to be compressed more? Also wondering how safe or less safe this would be compared to using a rented spring compressor if you were to do this at home.


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