What a pain!! (rear spring rant)

[shifty]

Man!

I had about 5 hours to work on the truck today, getting the entire frame torn down, flipped, notched + welded, and get the new 73-87 front crossmember cleaned up/degreased.

No problem, I thought. I managed to tear down a nearly complete front end and rear axle just last week in 75 minutes, so this should be easy breezy.

Got startd by soaking my new 73-87 front crossmember in some of that new Simple Green "biodegradable" oven cleaner and let it soak while I started on the frame. (The stuff actually worked pretty decent when combined with a wire brush).

While that was soaking, I busted out the new cordless impact wrench... ZIPP! Panhard bar OFF! All four shocks OFF! 5 minutes spent, making good progress, I FEEL GOOD! Some bolts were well rusted in, but with 10-15 seconds of impact banging on them, they came off like butter.

Then comes the bear. I jack up one of the trailing arms to get to the spring perch nut. I'm crackin at that thing for a good 90 seconds, and it won't budge! So I shoot it down with some PB Blaster top and bottom and go back to cleaning the new front crossmember.

Come back 30 minutes later, after shooting it a couple more times with PBB, and 5 minutes of constant beating, it still won't come free.

Out comes the MAPP gas torch. Heat that joker up, then shoot it with PBB afterwards and take another crack at it.

DAMNED THING WILL NOT BUDGE.

Go to the other side and try it. SAME THING. 1 hour wasted beating away at these stupid bolts with no luck. I tried every trick in the book, including trying to tighten it more, then loosen. NOTHING WORKED.

I ended up having to get a dang cutoff disc and literally cut the head of the bolt off, then hammer the perch out, then cut the spring off near the top perch, cut the perch bracket off, then cut the stupid perch bolt out as well. Burned through two cutoff discs doing all this.

So, long story short, wasted almost 4 hours on all of this, which blew away all of the time I had to work on the truck and left my garage smelling like pure ass.

I mean, I understand now (after looking at the bolts), these springs literally have NEVER been removed. But, my damn frame is in superb condition, no rust or pitting anywhere, been well taken care of, so it had 40 good, clean years! Everything else came off like a champ, so I'm not sure why these were such a bear.

Anyways, end rant. The springs are off, and I'm ready to cut the notch tomorrow, if I can knock out the honey-do list fast enough. Just thought I'd share the frustration

Has anyone else had a hell of a time trying to remove your rear springs like this? Every other bolt on my truck has pretty much slid right off, so I am utterly amazed that these were such a friggin bear.

I'm sure you guys up north deal with this all the time. My truck was made here in Atlanta and spend all but a couple years within a couple dozen miles of the plant it was manufactured in. It looks garage kept.