This one took all my gumption for a few days and Markos likes hearing about struggles so I thought I'd post.
When sending out parts for plating I decided to send my seat adjusters. But I didn't want to have the spring gold plated so I opened the slot at the end of the rod and removed the springs before sending to plating. Getting the spring back on turned out to be harder than I had anticipated. I initially tried grabbing the end of the spring with pliers, rotating and then tapping spring with a screwdriver/hammer but that proved futile. Then I cut a slot into a piece of flatbar, rotated that and again tried to tap the spring down into the slot, all to no avail. I ended up making a "tool" (if you can call it that) but cutting a slot in an old air compressor fitting (it was the first disposable thing I could find with roughly the proper diameter). I placed the end of spring into the slot, clamped it snug to the bracket, turned the fitting with a wrench, and increased clamping pressure until the spring dropped back into the slot. The inner diameter of the fitting was large enough to fit over the pin. Job done.
When sending out parts for plating I decided to send my seat adjusters. But I didn't want to have the spring gold plated so I opened the slot at the end of the rod and removed the springs before sending to plating. Getting the spring back on turned out to be harder than I had anticipated. I initially tried grabbing the end of the spring with pliers, rotating and then tapping spring with a screwdriver/hammer but that proved futile. Then I cut a slot into a piece of flatbar, rotated that and again tried to tap the spring down into the slot, all to no avail. I ended up making a "tool" (if you can call it that) but cutting a slot in an old air compressor fitting (it was the first disposable thing I could find with roughly the proper diameter). I placed the end of spring into the slot, clamped it snug to the bracket, turned the fitting with a wrench, and increased clamping pressure until the spring dropped back into the slot. The inner diameter of the fitting was large enough to fit over the pin. Job done.
