My suggestion is to lower the wheel carrier by detaching as few parts as possible, then remove the strut from the carrier (it is held on by the bolt that holds the drop link), replace the spring on the bench, and then put it all back together.
I would try this procedure (this assumes caliper and stuff is all out of the way already)
- Remove bolt 10 and slide that arm out of the way. The other end (bolt 16) connects to the chassis ahead of the rear wheels, but you don't need to loosen that end)
- Remove bolt 18 and remove bolt 12.
- Then remove bolt 5 from this diagram.
- At this point see if you can slide the wheel carrier down off the strut and free the bottom of the strut. If it can clear the strut then yay! Remove the 3 nuts on top and remove the strut, replace the spring, and reverse the steps to reinstall.
If the wheel carrier doesn't drop enough to clear the strut, then it is probably the axle hitting the midpipes. I'm not sure if you need to drop the mid pipes and disconnect the axles on the transmission side, or just one or the other. You for sure do NOT need to disconnect the axle/wheel hub end unless you are doing wheel bearings which you are not.
You may not need the rear toe adjusting arms, that may be just for folks that are doing extreme lowering. If your original strut top mounts and bump stops are in good shape, you shouldn't need any new parts except for a new nut for the strut top as it is single use. Although bump stops are pretty cheap, I would put new ones while you are in there. Sorry for the extra parts scare
