Thanks for the vote of confidence, gents. To be honest, one thing the W124 has over my E82 is a tremendous amount of space underneath the thing, and a lot more room to work. Even with the car on the ground, I can crawl underneath the bumpers or peer enough to make myself familiar with the lay of the suspension links, exhaust tract, etc. I can actually see the front bump stops (they're shot, btw) just by peering into the wheel wells while the car is parked! Basically, it looks fairly friendly to work on for the end user - my biggest concern is rusted out, stubborn bolts. But man, I'm looking forward to swapping out some old grungy rubber with new. Gonna be pretty satisfying to basically replace the entire undercarriage. It's a huge job, but the more I look at it, the more it really seems quite do-able, given enough time.

I guess cost is sort of the elephant in the room - I just keep telling myself it's much cheaper than buying a brand new E-Class, lol. Plus, they just don't quite make 'em like they used to, and chasing that old '80s charm is definitely part of the deal. I kinda just kinda of have my mind's eye on the finished product - there's a long way between here and there, and I can't really explain why it seems important to get there - but we're kind of weirdos like that, aren't we?

Swapping bushings is one of my biggest reservations. I hate to have to pick up a special tool, but I also don't want to truck my subframe off to a shop, either. Probably just going to bite the bullet and try to rent a tool, or pick one up used. I'm still worried that it's going to be tough, though.

A helper would be a huge help. A few years ago I had a neighbor that would've gladly given me a hand, but I've moved a couple times since then, and don't really have anyone like that local to me. Bummer!