@akwon: I used to pay very close attention to the 11.81 inches too, until I thought about it. Once you loosen the spring compressors, the spring expands. Then you put the assembly into the car and it doesn't matter where it was before. The final ride height in the car is a function of the spring sti...

I hear you on the spring compressor issue. I had a thread on here a few weeks back on the very subject. I was trying to disassemble an old set of 'free' front struts and the short spring compressors I had were just about good enough to remove the spring from the strut, but were not long enough then ...

The top nut is always isolated from the spring force (by the cross nut), whether assembled or not. So the force to loosen the top nut depends on how tightly it was cranked down by the last person in there. So anyway yes I have taken the top nut off several times, from units in the car. I do it to in...