Still finding it hard to believe that this can be done at all.

With no spring or strut in there, you can rotate those arms way down.
When I had a balljoint pop-out of its socket (similar to pulling the strut), the spring shoved the arm way past normal travel.

The only thing holding against the spring in this scenario would be the clamping force of the eccentric bolts, which is not much, or the arms would not move up either.

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1986 300E 5-Speed 240k mi.