Aargh - It all goes wrong

So with my BigJimny Lift Kit coming together and my Offroad Armory Spring Clamps I set out tonight to start the winter rebuild. First a quick look at the ORA Spring Clamp Kit

I thought I would do it properly, with Spring Compressors, it was a bit fiddly to get them in and I had to play around with the optimum stretch on the spring to get them in. I had thought that if I put them on when the spring was compressed by the car weight that then by simply relieving the weight with the jack that the springs would be held in place whilst the axle dropped away. Sadly its not possible to get them in between the springs when this is tried, so I let the springs stretch and then fitted them.

They fit either side of the spring and then are tightened up evenly to compress the spring. The other trick would be to simply drop the axle off.

With a bit of a wiggle the Spring is off.

Here is the new, next to the old. They are both 3" lift springs, you can see that the old has sagged (although, of course, the new one will probably relax a bit once used)

Next, I started to look to prepare for the fitting of the Spring Clamps. This involves drilling a hole in the spring saddle to take the 16mm securing bolt. First I found the centre of the saddle and punched a mark.

However, you need quite a bit of space to squeeze an electric drill into the gap to drill a hole. Therefore I had a further play to try and drop the axle further, then I spotted THIS

Yes - the axle mounting has sheared clean off!!!!! No wonder there was a lot of clunking from the rear!!!

So all work stops