Regal 93 rear strut tool help!

[noclues]

A friend of mine offered to replace my driver side rear strut because of the terrible noise it was doing for sometime now, but he did not take into account the number eight ("8") shaped piece of rubber that cannot fit in anymore. I think it's called auxiliary dumper or spring or smth. The thing is that we cannot find any "special tool" at murray or autozone to squeeze that 4" rubber thing into place. We've tried 6" C-clamps and everything else, but it just cannot be compressed enough or in the right direction.
The funny thing though, the Hayes, Chilton and Alldata say that you just remove that particular spring/damper and that "installation is reverse". No other details!
Now my car is sitting in his garrage and we just dont know what to do next. Anyone knows the exact name of that tool and where I might rent/buy it or some clues on how I might "build my own" tool replacement?
And best of all: if I dont replace that rubber "8" spring, will that break the car anytime soon? I'm tempted to just throw it away, the car already has 142kmiles and it's a bumpy ride anyway! But I wanna make sure it's "safe" to still ride the freeway and not get killed...
Thanks guys

[raybuick]

I know exactly what you are talking about because mine is also off on one side after getting a new(USED) bottom mounting bracket from the wreckers. I tried compressing it in a vice and then wiring it compressed on both sides but it still wasn't enough to fit in. Im still driving, but i think this will work if you disable or decompress the sway bar in the rear also, but i have yet to take it in for this. Then the next day I had another thought. If you remove the big bolt on the lateral bar,where this damper bolts on(whether left or right side) .Then you drop the bar. My 94 has a long bolt from the top that threads into the bottom of this damper. You'll probably need to compress the damper (with bracket) for the bolt to reach the the bottom thread and then as you start tightening long bolt, it will hold damper compressed. Then hopefully you'll be able to bolt lateral bar back in position and put the bolt that secures the damper bracket at the base back on. Presto