Front shock and spring disassembly

ed1965dream · Post by **ed1965dream** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 11:07 pm

Last winter I purchased a '65 Dream for $300 that was totally disassembled and in boxes. I'm making good progress with sorting, cleaning, powder coating, painting, etc. before beginning re-assembly. One thing I have not been able to dis-assemble is the front shock/spring assembly. Is there some trick to compressing the spring to get the top holder free. I'm assuming that if you compress the spring, the top piece(not sure what it's called) screws off. Has anyone been able to do this and did you make a special tool? Thanks

OldStan · Post by **OldStan** » Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:58 am

Post your location and your likely to get more responses, and maybe some local help.

Hope you get a helpful reply since I'd like to see the answer myself! :)

ed1965dream · Post by **ed1965dream** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:13 pm

OK, I decided to tackle this problem by making a spring compressor to disassemble the shock/spring combination. I cut two brackets from 1/8” steel, another bracket from sheet metal and used some threaded rod for the screw compressor.

Here are some pictures of the dis-assembly, restoration, re-assembly and the home made spring compressor.

First step of the dis-assembly was to remove the top bracket from the shock assembly by using a wrench to hold the lower bracket and screwing off the top round holder.

ed1965dream · Post by **ed1965dream** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:15 pm

Next I used the spring compressor to compress the spring off the shocks upper shaft, then un-screwed the top retainer. At this point the spring can be removed from the shock.

ed1965dream · Post by **ed1965dream** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:19 pm

The springs appeared to be originally chrome plated, but I opted to powder coat the springs silver, after a cleaning and bead blasting. The upper and lower retainers, which are aluminum, were polished on a light de-burring wheel, as was the shock assembly. The plastic liner between the spring and shock was cleaned, then painted black.

The shock originally was un-painted so I opted to leave it that way, but gave it a light coating of protective sealer prior to re-assembly.

ed1965dream · Post by **ed1965dream** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:23 pm

To re-assemble I attached the spring compressor, wound it down and attached the upper inner retainer. Once this is screwed onto the shock upper shaft the spring compressor can be removed and the top retainer re-attached.

Here are some additional pictures of the compressor.

ed1965dream · Post by **ed1965dream** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:26 pm

Before and after shots