[raw]

got them fitted:

so, started with moving the car off the nice off street drive onto the road, as apparently i mess the gravel up when working on the car :S anyways, front end up,



O/S Strut out, compress spring, spring off, side by side with the new one



and reassebled:



very comfortable ball joint needed changing before the strut could go back in. normally a sharp tap to the bottom frees these (i've changed them a few times) but didnt work with these. tried ball joint chisel thing, ended up using lots of fire, several hammers and in the end a sledgehammer! on closer inspection these (these are the ones off the 940 so not ones i've changed before) were the original volvo marked ones i think! no wonder they didnt want to come free.







inadvertantly dropped chisel on lighter, which promptly exploded!



bigger hammer was needed



front back together and back on the group strangely it doesnt look that low in this photo, but there was actually quite a pronounced rake going on!



rear up in the air, lots of extensions needed for this bit!



these are the bolts that i used to reassemble when i changed for the HD springs, i found that i couldnt squash the spring seat enough to get the originals back in so just used some longer threaded bolts. think they're M8x40 maybe? obviously if anyone does the same, make sure they're good quality bolts, these are 8.8 marked which is good enough i think.



getting the O/S Spring out is more difficult than the N/S. there's no need to compress either, as the tops slide out backwards, but on the O/S it just takes a bit of force to get it past the exhaust box.

reassembled the spring top mount on the new spring.



and all back on the ground. more difficult than it sounds as i didnt think about not being able to get the jack out from under the diff when i put the stands under, making it hard to lower the car down!





all the angles on the front look ok to me too



then after fitting lowering springs, it was pressed straight back into use lugging things about :| clever planning there! yes, that's tuck on the rear axle. did have two large trays of marble tiles in the back though, and a bike :P it sits maybe an inch higher normally, and the arch gap is fairly similar front and rear now too, which means the front has dropped more than the back thankfully



so, all done, will get some more photos up when it's settled a bit too.

drove back up to loughborough this evening, with an entire boot full, seats down and all, and bike on the back. should have got a photo! car feels really good though, much less roll, firm but not crashy ride, and strangely it feels like i'm going a lot slower all the time! was really weird sitting in the slow lane of the motorway all the way to uni, doing about 65MPH which feels like about 50 compared to before! when pressing on a bit before loading up, it did feel a bit more understeery than before, and also seems to follow bumps more than before, i wonder if perhaps it could do with a little more caster?