I lost my extruder spring today and so I had to order some replacements. It was a bit disappointing to see my relatively new printer sitting there dark though so I decided to do some tinkering.
If you’re in a pinch and you lost your extruder spring and still have the screws used to secure the bed for shipping, you can use one of those instead. It’s not overly straightforward in that you can’t just thread it in there. It seems you may have to position the lever so it will grip the filament but won’t be too tight and then when you tighten the screw, it secures it in that position…or at least that’s how it seemed to function for me.
This is definitely not a permanent solution, and even as a workaround, it’s pretty janky…but it got me up and printing while I wait for those springs to arrive. YMMV but I figured I’d post this in case it helps someone in a pinch.