today i was trying to sell the probe to a friend as a viable winter beater, and when we pulled out of my driveway there was a very slight clunk and a horrendous grinding from the right front corner. coil spring was broken and partly hanging over spring perch on strut, and was being mashed into inboard corner of tread. pulled into my garage and pulled RF wheel, and it was obvious that the spring had been broken for quite some time, as it was rusty on the surface of the break.
my theory is that the spring broke when I slammed the curb leaving the whitewater center about 18 months ago, and i just didn't notice it when I changed the control arm and half shaft. i think this is plausible because i rotated the spring to where the end would be properly seated and the break was directly inboard of, and therefore hidden by, the strut body. there is witnessing on the unibody where the spring struck it as it was displaced significantly rearward when i hit that curb. 
anyway, i need to rock that car for another 2 months so i've ordered two new front struts and springs, and some new slide pins for the rear calipers ($203 plus shipping, but with a $50 gift card for orders over $200 so effective price $153.) i also found an oe set of alloys with decent tires for $150 obo on the local CL. so for around $300 plus some elbow grease it'll be reasonably tight again. i'm going to save well over a grand by rebuilding the front end of my wife's minivan at home, so spending a few hundy on the PGT to enable that larger savings is a solid trade-off.
the old shock had a boot on it that wouldn't come off nor fit through the spring opening. FORD FAIL!!!
