I think stuffing rope in the cylinder was the best method, turned out i ran out of time and couldn't get back to it until next weekend, happy i didn't use the air hose that time. Pushing the springs down by hand would be pretty [censored] hard, but make sure you have someone there with a magnet to catch the keepers, those things can fly off and good luck finding them. I tried the average spring compressor, but found out they were too big and wouldn't let me compress them. What i did was take a cheap pair of harbor freight long needle nose pliers and welded them so the tips would lay on outside of the top washer and pushed down. Have fun!