I thought it would be easy, with the body off and engine out, nothing in the way, but the service manual apparently depends on the weight of all those things. It says to put a jack under the LCA but with next to no weight that lifts the entire frame.

However, I think I have an idea....run half inch threaded rod thru the upper shock hole and out the bottom, put a 6" piece of unistrut on each end, some washers and nuts, now I can compress the spring and the LCA at the same time, the threaded rod holds it all together in one go. Once the LCA bolts are out, Just loosen the top nut until the LCA is down enough to have some slack indicating the spring is no longer under tension.

Andybody see a problem with this? Got a pro coming over Monday morning to keep me out of trouble, as we are also replacing ball joints and bushings....

 

Bill, the last time we replaced coils ('51 Studebaker) we had to get coil spring compressors and that kinda got the job done. Good luck with it and keep us posted.
I see you have a Dippy, what motor do you have in it?

 

Dippy has a slant 6 and 2.7 gears, gonna leave the motor alone and put in 3.5 gears....

 

Bill, that should be an 8.25 rear end in there and are you sure it is exactly 2.7, if memory serves me, somewhere in there, there is a carrier change so I'm not sure if that carrier will do for the 3.55's. Winter project here . . 360 - 79 Magnum gonna swap in 355 Sure Grip and OD trans.

 

The axle is 7.25", ratio is 2.76, and I got 3.55 gears from an early dakota. They used the smaller axle on the light duty Dakotas early on...
Since it is just a /6, and the axle is still good, and I don't do burnouts, I will keep the lightduty axle until it actually fails, if it fails.

 

Update, it worked fine.... 24" of half inch threaded rod is about right.....compress ALL of the suspension, not just the spring.
Getting the LCA bushings out was easy, altho one on each side needs 3/8" threaded rod, it uses a smaller bolt.
Big problem was the UCA dogbone bushings, but I modified a Pickle Fork that was already spread some, did some grinding on the business end. Using a big screwdriver I bent the bushing lips out a bit, then jammed the PF in there and pried under the lip while whacking the PF on the side near the bushing....that got the first one out, took some time, and some penetrating oil, but it worked. Of course, this is an AZ truck, no rust at all...
If Dodge had redesigned the UCA just a little, I could have used a socket and threaded rod on the second UCA bushing, but there is no way to get the socket over the bushing, unless you have thin wall sockets...very thin...or notch a socket....if I ever have to do it again, I am making a tool for the UCA bushings....
Anyway, they are done, just waiting for the paint to dry and reinstallation can be done...