[joedoh]

you shouldnt mess with the springs if you are inexperienced or unsure, there is a couple thousand pounds of compressed energy there and its better to take it to a shop than risk damage or injury.

if its in your wheelhouse though, the way I do it is to put the truck on jack stands with the front off the ground quite a bit so the lower control arm can have room to swing down. take out the shock and take the sway bar loose (remove the endlink) on the arm you will be working on. put a good jack under the lower arm and gently lift it just until the spring compresses slightly. take loose the cotter pin on the lower balljoint and LOOSEN ONLY the castle nut, do not remove it, you only want the top of the nut to the top of the threads. lower the jack under the arm till it is just not touching under the arm (maybe a 1/4" under the arm) and use a decent hammer to hit the spindle at the location of lower balljoint. dont hit it timidly, and dont even come close to hitting the castle nut, you only want to shock the spindle until the balljoint pops, the arm will pop downward and rest on the jack and the small amount of gap on the threads from when you loosened the castle nut will be gone. lift the arm carefully with the jack just slightly until you can see a small amount of space between the castle nut and the spindle again and take the castle nut completely off, it should only be finger tight now but you may need a socket still. with the castle nut off VERY SLOWLY lower the jack until the balljoint is free from the spindle and keep lowering slowly till the tension is completely off the spring. a fair warning, if the springs are the stock springs there will still be a little tension in them with the jack all the way out. put a length of chain though the coils of the springs, it will keep the spring from flying out of the pocket, and leverage the arm downward till it is loose. if you have lowering springs, they will come loose much sooner and the arm will actually come out of contact with the spring before you get it down.

reinstall is almost the reverse, seat the upper part of the spring so that the lower part of the spring sits correctly in the lower arm, there is a dimple for the end of the spring to sit. place the jack under the arm and lift carefully until the balljoint threads are through the spindle, reinstall the castle nut and tighten, reinstall the cotter pin, remove the jack under the arm and reinstall the sway bar end link and shock.

things to watch for are the dust shield on the brake will like to get caught on the edge of the lower arm, making you THINK the tension is off but really isnt. also, the spindle is quite heavy, on some trucks I have liked to have another jack to lift up slightly on the lugs and keep it out of the way that way. it wont quite hang by the brake hose but you can remove the caliper first hang it on a coat hanger if it bothers you.

proceed at your own risk, again there is thousands of pounds of potential energy stored in compressed coil springs. at no point should you have the balljoint castle nut removed before shocking the spindle to break the connection between the spindle and the balljoint, or have the lower arm hanging without a jack under it unless all the tension is out of the spring. some people use a pickle fork to get the lower balljoint loose, some people use the balljoint separator tool, doing it with the hammer method described doesnt need those tools and doesnt tear the balljoint boot.


I have never had any luck with spring compressors on the s10; they take more time and care to install than is worth to me. its a fiddly chore to install compressors in such a way that they dont come loose, and at the end you still have to uncompress then recompress them on the bench. using the weight of the truck as described above is much safer and more useful to me, but choose whatever method you are comfortable with. I have seen large and long spring pliers at shops that make it possible to pinch the spring slightly and make it less dramatic to remove and install.

TL;DR man up, use jackstands, use good jacks, be careful. a compressed spring will knock your teeth out at the very least.