Help needed - 7/2!!! Spring install help!!!
 

Installing a set of Tein springs I bought off a friend. Of course, when removing the first spring out of the compressor, I lost some bearings. Put them all back, installed the spring, but now the cap that holds the bearings is off and has a gap in it.

If you look at the other spring which still has the stock spring in it, you can see there is no gap. If you look at the new spring compared to the old, the factory spring's first coil is pretty flat, keeping everything snug up to the top cap. The new spring's first coil drops down, which seems to push one side of the bearing cap up, and the other down.

I'm going back into the garage to compress the second one now. Can someone take a look at this and help me out? I'm afraid to put this back on the car, then go over a bump, knock the bearing cap out, lose all the bearings and get stuck. Looking at this, that is the first thing that pops into my mind. Do all setups with lowering springs look like this? Is this going to be a problem?

Pics below for reference. The first one is the new spring with the gap, second pic is the factory setup. Your immediate help and thoughts are GREATLY appreciated!!!

Did you make sure that you aligned the bearing cap correctly?

See pic.

Note notch in cap aligns with hole in lower platform.

Yes I did. Both sides are aligned properly. Also, I got the other side in without losing the bearings, and the cap did the same exact thing. I messed around with some pliers trying to close it by hand, then see that once the car is dropped to the ground, the weight and compression will close it. I'm going for broke and installing them. We'll see what happens.

Cross your fingers for me!

Well, we're installed, freaked me out a bit when I did the rears, the front tire came off the ground. yikes!

So everything was fine for the first 15 miles, then I developed the strut popping that everyone had fixed under the TSB. I never had that issue, but now the passenger side strut is popping just a little on turns, but mostly when I slow down to a stop. I'm going to post in the issues section, just had never heard of someone not having the problem until they put on lowering springs. Car has almost 21K and nary a pop until now. Weird.

Same thing happened to me when I installed the Eibach's Pro, but I'm not going to take care of it via TSB, I'll put TOKICO Adjustables, and hope it goes away