[wrenchnride247]

LOAF,

You should be able to back out the bolts on the cover plates enough to get the spring plate over the side of the stop. Using the spring plate tool you shouldn't have to worry about using a longer bolt to stop the spring plate anyway.

I did remove the trailing arms first, but you can just let them hang by the pivot bolt. The allen wrench is a 17mm. Make sure and check to see if the bolt heads aren't held by peened over tabs. The factory put about three notches around the bolt head to peen surrounding metal into them. Just use a small punch and hammer to un-peen them.