Over the winter I lowered the jacks and heard a clang when one of the springs on the left front jack broke.

These are straight ram style HWH 9000# leveler jacks. They have two large external springs to retract the cylinder when needed. One of my springs had broken. The other spring was not able to retract the cylinder by itself. I had to use a 4 ft 2x4 to help lever up on the cylinder to retract it completely.

Needless to say this is inconvenient. I ordered a set of replacement springs. They are used on many HWH models and are widely available.

HWH R3847 Spring kit (I got the pair for $42)

The springs must be stretched in order to install. One end hooks to the top of the jack, the other hooks to the shoe on the bottom of the cylinder. After reading a few discussions I decided to use some materials laying around to make a spring stretcher.

The weather has been really poor lately. 20's and 30's at night, only 40's daytime lately. Too cold to work outside without gloves. Decided to play in the garage and make the spring tool and have it ready to do the job on the coach when the weather finally warms.

I had a piece of 1/2" threaded rod for the main section. I made a couple ends with hooks and they seem to work OK. One end is smaller so it can fit close to the top spring mount of the jack. The other is larger with the jack nut and will hang down to be hooked to the bottom plate.



The collapsed length of the spring is about 13" and must be about 16" long when installed in the retracted position. The threaded rod works easily to stretch the spring that much.

When the weather improves I will see how it works. I plan to install the new spring first, the remove the other old one and replace it.

With the spring stretched can you put shims/pennies between the turns to maintain the space? Shims would have to alternate positions to keep the spring straight. If this works you could install and deploy to remove the shims.
Worth every penny used

I should be able to install directly without shimming. I think I can hook the spring into place right from the stretcher, then unscrew the threaded rod to release it.

Geez the Penny stretch is a cool idea, might be a safe way to get the old spring out too. Lower it a bit put some pennies in the open space between coils and retract a bit to free the spring. Clever these Americans!!!

If those springs had been for your VW Bus they would have cost $4.20

$.5 for a roll of pennies, maybe you can get a roll of .01 Pesos for less too!

After a week of 30's we finally got a warm up this weekend. Upper 60's today. Decided to give my spring installation a try.

As I hoped, there is plenty of room alongside the spring for the stretcher so I did not need shims, I just stretched it and hooked in the ends. I used a floor jack to be sure the ram was fully retracted and to keep the bottom shoe level.

I set the stretcher up to remove the other old spring. I will replace with matching new one.



Good tools help the job go faster!

Nice and no snow in the picture. speaking of picture PB behaved...................?

Did you try it out did they now retract by itself?

upon careful consideration and asking Google I determined the big bright thing in the sky here today is the sun.

I was really hoping you would use those peso coins ...