Q: When spring compressors are not available to perform vehicle repairs, what tip, trick, or tool is recommended to hold the tension of a coil spring?

A1:Nothing but a real spring compressor is recommended. There is a lot of stored energy in a compressed suspension spring. If your kludge lets go, there will be pieces flying about with high velocity. Very dangerous. Buy or rent one. Failing that take you car to a service garage.

A2:Get a compressor expander whatever. There are tricks to do it, but they are hard and not worth the time and effort. If you had a third hand it would be fairly easy. As it is, you pry things to the come-off and they go flying away.