I am at a loss as to why I overlooked this spring spreader topic.
I can clearly recall the many 'shade-tree', hair brained tricks that we used, bumper jacks, bottle jacks, etc., to remove a Early Ford V8 spring.
In the middle ' 70's I had to remove the front spring from my '36 to replace the spring bushings... As i was attempting this project the lights came on in a dark corner of my brain, recalling a spring spreader we used at a Ford Dealership I worked at for awhile in the mid '50's.
I was able to fabricate a very good variation of a KR Wilson spreader that worked very nicely.
Pix attached..