cafe racers rock, love the old bikes, as for getting them assembled at a shop before hand, i don't think that's going to work unless you got new top plates as well, as you typically reuse these with the new set-up, that said if you do have new top plates i'd still just go and get some spring compressors then you have the tool if you ever need to do this again or change anything,
i went through 3 differant kinds of spring compressors on my install, trying to find the easiest one to use and that did the best job,
first i used these,
they sucked the hooks are hard to get into the coils you can't always get the hooks on the coils you like due to the thickness of the hooks and the tight wraps of the coils and they broke before the coil was compressed enough to get the top plate on. granted they were harbour freight brand for only $9.99 but still wasn't as easy to maneuver, honestly kind of scary becuase it's hard to get the perfect purchase on them and squared to each other on either side.
next i used these, same thing hard to get a good hold of the coil and the hooks where much to large for the front coils, i shaved down the hooks to fit in coil but was still awkward, these maybe very good for the rear coils but for the fronts, no bueno ,
lastly i used these, and they were great, due to the way they go on they will never slip off and you can lay the coil on a work bench then put these on either side of the coil flat and square to each other with ease, not to mention you can pick any wrap you want and hook on to it from there, so when your pulling the coil down everything is nice and even and square.
my only concern is that the hooks or u-bolts might be a little flimsy depends on the grade of it, i know personally after taking 3 hours with fighting with the other kinds of spring compressors just to get the front in i was able to pull, disassemble and reassemble and re-install one of the front coils in about 45 minutes a side from start to finish. honestly it just made the job so much easier using these small little things....
on the last one it has little u-bolts that go through the coil and you just tighten the main bolt head to compress, one problem i was having was the other spring compressors besides these would get bound up on the upper shock boot or cover once you tried to put the coil over the shock and screw on the top plate.
another thing that will speed up the install is just undo this thing
then undo these 4 bolts (front view)
bottom view
this will allow for the lower control arm to drop way way down, next put the coil assy in and loosely screw in the top of the shock assy or screw in the top plate loosely, then just put your foot on the lower a arm and push down until this bolt swings into place
then pin it, it works best with a buddy so he can push harder or not so hard until that hole lines up, once you got that bolt in tighten everything up on the shock assy get a floor jack and jack up the part that has the 4 bolts on it to the bottom of the rotor assy and reinstall those 4 bolts and then reinstall everything else and you should be good to go...
this is a very easy job if you got the right tools and a clear way of doing it, i gotta thank brian2sun for the 4 bolt trick, it easily made the job 70% easier to complete, it was one of those things as well, were he kept telling people to just drop those bolts and got ignored or at least not replied to about, so i decided to give it a try after hours of fighting and cursing, and between that little tip and the right spring compressors the job was a snap, i would not think a second about doing this again now.
you got a great support group even if we can't be there in person, just hope on here and say help asap! and i'm sure guys will dive right in to give you a hand, i know they did with me when i was sitting at the tire shop yesterday ;-)
