Following the manual, I removed the the entire strut/spring assembly. put the new strut on the original spring. But, when i tried to put the assembly back on the truck, it seems to long to fit. I have the top three bolts attached but cannot compress the spring/strut enough to get the bottom bolt through. Need help please!!!!

 

when I did this on mine I had to use something to pry the lower a-arm down to get mine together also you can use a farm jack and a chain to help compress the shock slightly still being able to move it around to line up.