A lot of us have had this same problem, and we've cussed, cussed and discussed this issue over and over. I spent hours and hours in the same predicament you're in right now. I have two observations that might help. #1 - unless you have a spring compressor different from the one I have, you cannot compress the springs while the strut is in the car. The compressor is simply too big to fit inside the strut tower. #2 - the control arm can be forced downward enough to get that extra 1/4 inch that is so critical. I used a homemade pry bar to force the arm down. I used a piece of 1 inch square tubing, about 4 feet long. I inserted the end of the tubing into an opening somewhere around the back of the control arm (can't remember exactly where, but somewhere that I could get leverage), and then sat on the opposite end of the tubing pry bar. In that way, I was able to force the control arm downward. I probably worked 10-12 hours on that problem, using bottle jacks, scissors jacks, floor jacks, etc, and the long pry bar was the only thing that helped.
