Probably not, but…
Rob Grangers book only shows spring overhaul as part of shock absorber removal and overhaul.
My question; is it possible to remove the anti-roll bar, disconnect the shock turret and lower the wishbone far eough so that with compressors you can undo the top of the shock and remove the spring? Save all that ball joint madness and ball-joint boot/cotter pin replacement (seriously, who replaces cotter pins?).
If you are playing with springs/shocks, this must get onerous?
Secondly, are shock boots part of an MOT? Mine are shot, but I will be replacing the shocks, once I’ve settled on them I’ll do all the boots at the same time.
Do you think I should abort and do shocks/springs at the same time? I was expecting to have to do alignment after each step anyway.
cheers, all advice appreciated!
Maybe on the rears, but not on the fronts, here’s a method
http://mx5oc.co.uk/forum/forums/t/242.aspx
AFIK shock boots are not part of the MOT, my car passed 3 mots with no shock boots fitted.
Yep, bail out and do the whole lot together
Actually, you can sometimes change the springs without removing the shocks - I removed an ARB droplink bolt, removed the shock piston bolt and compressed the shock piston (you need strong hands! I used some lock wire to keep the piston compressed while I did this), there’s enough clearance to slip the spring out if you push down hard on the lower wishbone. I managed to do this front and back on my Mk1 although I did have eibach springs which are shorter than stock, which made things easier, and my shocks were KYB AGX, although I doubt this make much difference.
If I were you I’d hold off fitting lower springs until you’ve got the new shocks (unless you’ve got a cracked spring)
This is something thats been going through my head a lot lately.
Surely you could jack up the front, Use spring compressors, Take off the damper rod nut and top mount nuts, Push the damper rod down with a screw driver, Drop out the top mount, Take the pressure off the spring compressors then “Cork screw” the spring out of the top mounts hole?
I keep thinking that this sounds too easy, I must be missing something. If this worked then why would anyone use the “Haynes” way to swap springs and damper boots?
Sorry mate, but that sounds like a recipe for disaster. Have you had a look at the size of the hole in the inner wing and compared it to the diameter of the spring?
More to the point, that’s totally unnecessary! If you’ve got as far removing the top mounts, you’ll have enough room to be able to tilt the shock towards you and remove the spring from the shock (although you might need to compress the shock piston first).
That all sounds complicated - once you’ve undone the top mount (2 nuts) and dropped the ARB (6 bolts) all you need to do is unbolt the lower balljoint carrier from the lower wishbone (2 bolts) and remove the shock lower bolt and you can pull the damper+spring assembly straight out. So long as the bolts all undo OK it’s a pretty easy job, certainly safer than trying to use a spring compressor within the wheelarch!!!
Much easier if you have a helper with a long steel bar to level the lower wishbone down also.
Oh. So no need to pop the ball joint at all. I like the sound of that. I think I’ll give it a try over the festive break 
There may be better ways but I’ve removed the spring and shock assembly a couple of times. Car jacked up on the body so the wheel hangs free. Remove wheel. Undo the ARB link. Compress the spring. Undo the lower shock bolt, undo the top nut, loosen top mount for wiggle room. All should drop out with a bit of wangling. Leaving the ball joint untouched.
Your shock boots shouldn’t matter for MOT but you could remove/trim any untidy looking bits in case of any queries.
Sounds flippin dangerous to me.
It’s actually quite easy to replace springs and dampers and you can remove the damper from the car by undoing the drop links and pushing the wishbone down as noted above. Also, from personal experience it’s far easier to use spring compressors off the car than it is on the car. You’re talking about a lot of extra hassle and effort to prevent undoing 1 extra bolt per shock by leaving it all in situ.
When I did mine, the spring still expanded slightly with compressors on there and it went with a little ping, nothing too major. But that was off the car. Do that on the car and the top mount would be pinged up into the wing and be a real pain in the proverbial to get off. Plus you may damage top mount/wing/both/fingers.
It’s hard to get compressors into exactly the correct position off the car let alone on the car and you wont stop the spring expanding slightly when you undo the top mount. It just stops its exploding off and killing you or whatever the top mount hits after being launched into hyperspace when the spring extends VERY quickly.
Personally think it’s far easier to take out the unit, get spring compressor on, undo top mount, remove spring, compress new spring, put on, reassemble shock, put back on car and away you go. Bet its a lot quicker too. You just need to get plenty of plus gas on the nuts bolt first.
Having done this several times on several cars I would advise that messing about inside the wheel arch with spring compressors is not the way to go. Also, even if you can compress the spring slightly it is still a hell of a struggle to deflect the suspension down far enough to remove the unit. You are more likely going to damage a lot of paint work and yourself.
An easy method to get at the spring is to undo the long inner mount of the top wishbone. Push it all the way forward and by supporting the wheel hub on a jack it can all be lowered safely and the damper unit removed. It also doesn’t mess with any of your suspension geometry.
I would suggest that that as the rubber gator also is the bump stop that it’s condition is part of the MOT, although it will depend on the examiner.