I'm replacing the control arm bushings & lower ball joint in a '98 SL500 with the Sport Pkg. incl self-Levelling suspension. I'm still wainting on MBUSA to send the DVD service manual. It looks like it is 7-10 working days to get that thing. Meanwhile I'm trying to go ahead with the suspension bushings.

I've made a spring compressing tool which is the 'leaf-style' where the leaves insert thru the gaps between the coils and I'm using a piece of 1/2" allthread with nuts/washers to compress the leaves. I didn't have a real deep 7/8 socket to get more compression beyond that I could get by clamping at the preload of just lifting by jacking under the brake disc to the point of almost zero vehicle weight on the jackstand on that side, then cinching up the nut on the allthread. After lowering the control arm back down, I could wedge a screwdriver under the spring at the control arm and see that I could lift the bottom coil just a bit. I judged this to be reasonably small residual spring preload on the control arm.

In this state. I then tried to remove the bolts thru the eccentrics at the bushings. The rear one seemed to slide reasonably easy, but the front one still seemed a bit tight. I then went to the bolt thru the lower ball joint. After removing the nut, it still seemed tight to knocking it out.

I put the nuts back on the three joints and figured to re-evaluate it tomorrow with deep 7/8" socket to get more spring compression.

I also found myself wondering whether the Self-Levelling suspension is adding some force to the control arm that I am not grappling with by clamping/compressing the coil spring.

Does anyone know if this is the case with the Self-Levelling suspension?

Any suggestions on dropping from the outside vs the inside?