limit further compression of the spring assembly preferably the height of the guide pins 18 is such that the minimum compressible height 34 y 34 of the spring assembly 10 fig4 is slightly greater than the spring solid height of the spring assembly 10 in addition it will further be noted that at the minimum compressible height 34 y 34 shown in fig4 neither of the hook or loop members 22 and 24 protrude beyond the outer surfaces of the upper 12 and lower 14 annular plates thus it will be appreciated that the interconnecting means 20 in the present invention does not limit or effect in any way the compressibility of the spring assembly 10 as noted above the spring assembly 10 described in the preferred embodiment is intended for use in automatic transmissions for vehicles in this application it is desirable to configure the interconnecting means 20 so that locked height 34 x 34 of the spring assembly 10 is slightly greater than the maximum excursion height of the spring assembly during normal operation of the transmission in this manner the interconnecting means remains unloaded during operation of the transmission thereby greatly improving the reliability of the spring assembly 10 finally while the preferred embodiment of the present invention employs annular plates 12 and 14 that are made from stamped sheet metal it will be appreciated that it is possible depending on the requirements of a particular application to injection mold the annular plates from various high strength plastic materials as well the use of a plastic material may of course necessitate a modification to the design of the hook and loop members to accommodate the different material characteristics of the plastic.