Hey Patrick,

I was wondering why you had the 2 nub. But now it is clear, you have different springs than mine (got the blue mark). I thought we basically had the same optioned car, different color.

Anycase, when you get a chance I am curious as what the wire size is on your car's coils. You should take some measurements when you get a chance.



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1983 123.133 California
- GreaseCar Veg System

That is interesting Richard. It makes sense though, thinner pads give more room for longer springs. But is ride height affected that much?

Looking at the lovely photos you took of the differential DIY, I have the red marked rear springs. Been a while since I looked at the rear spring pads, but it may be 2 or 1.

So similarly optioned cars can have different suspension setup (in terms of spring and/or pad options). I wonder how to figure that out other than taking a look? I know they can be swapped but it would be nice to determine what should have come with the car when they were new. I don't think the VIN decoder has that info.

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Yes it would be nice to figure that out.

Another note, I remember you saying you had Bilsteins shocks as originally installed on your car. Mine came with Boge shocks. I wonder if that means anything.

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1983 123.133 California
- GreaseCar Veg System

When my uncle and I replaced the front guide rod mounts, we had to disconnect the shock absorbers. I had a chance to take a good look to realize they were Bilstein, and had the MB logo on them. Probably the originals, and still very strong too.

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pad thickness was meant to fine-tune the ride height, not meant from the factory to allow for longer springs in terms of overall sprung length.

The FSM has copious spring data based on model/country/option. 12 pages on the front springs alone, 4 on the rear and another 2 pages of spring technical data. Sections 32-220, 32-240 and 32-250.

If you want specific info, PM me and pull the data out. I'd need year, model code (e.g. 123.153 for my Coupe) and options including A/C, sunroof, tranny, power steering, police equipment, supplemental heater and ABS (and if you're driving a police equipped W123 w/ ABS I wanna know about it). I'd scan the tables, but the files would be huge to make the small print legible.

The pad height is one factor for ride height, and usually only a few mm, but it could be as much as 15 mm if you went from thickest to skinniest. The other factors will be spring length and compression. FSM values range from a soft 27 mm per 1000 N compression for thin coils (14.3 mm) to 17.1 mm/1000 N for the beefy 16.2 coils. There are 8 different factory springs for the front with different lengths and compression rates.

Pics and measurements from my car in the next post.