[Shotimes] Broken front spring

[Malcolm Walker]

Hi all, I am a vagrant member of the Triumphs mailing list, here on
team.net...

Friend of mine has a Taurus (sadly, not an SHO) that recently decided to
break the right front spring.  Luckily, while sitting in the
driveway.  Looks like the recall for the '93 front springs should have
been extended to '94 too :(

I've looked over what I can find, and the Haynes book, but I still have
some (hopefully easy) questions that I want to address before putting
wrench to nut.

First, what size is the retaining nut for the sway bar mount (on the
strut) ?  18mm?  23/32?  None of the wrenches I had seemed to fit very
well, but I'm not sure if rust on the nut has expanded it. (Maybe I'm too
used to working on English iron)

Second, the Haynes book instructs me to remove the steering knuckle.  They
make it sound easy.  But reading George Fourchy's site leads me to think
that I can leave the knuckle alone on the front and just pull the strut
out vertically.  Is this true?  Do I need to compress the spring?  I
really don't want to remove the axles to drop the strut / spring out.

The broken spring has 'knotted' itself slightly, and I'm hesitant to stick
anything in there to get it apart - anyone know the length of an unsprung
Taurus spring, so I can figure out how much the broken spring wants to
extend before going further?  (it's the 3.8L motor, GL trim, if that makes
a difference)

I'm going to be attacking the monster on the weekend, so there's plenty of
time to catch me before I do something dumb ;).  We are going to rent a
spring compressor, instead of risking it by buying a cheapie one, and
replace the springs but not the struts.

Thanks in advance,
-Malcolm