123 Suspension (Front End) Rebuild - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

ROLLGUY · #1 01-08-2013, 01:58 AM

My neighbor took his 1980 300TD to an alignment shop last year, and they told him it would cost $1,000 to fix the front end. He saved the money and took the car back, and they said more parts were bad, and it would cost almost $2,000 now. He asked me if I would do the job, and if it could be done for $1,000 or less. I told him that $1,000 would be plenty enough to rebuild the entire front end, replacing all the parts the other shop was going to replace, and more. The car is a very nice original 1980 300TD- gold with the reddish brown interior (not sure of the color name). All the suspension parts seem to have been original, as the car only has a little more than 120,000 miles on it.

We ordered all the parts from Pelican Parts. We got upper control arms, lower control arm bushings, ball joints, center link, tie rods, outer radius arm bushings, and sway bar bushings. We also got a pair of hatch supports. I had a nice pair of used (like new) Bilstein shocks that I got at a wrecking yard that I installed. We went to a friends shop and sandblasted and painted some spare parts I had (spindles, lower controlarms, backing plates, and spring pearches) and installed the new bushings and ball joints in them so the parts would be ready to install on the car so it would not be out of commission for more than a day. The parts ready to be installed:

One side ready to install the new parts:

We got a spring compressor kit from Amazon, and it worked well:

Finished side:

I had no issues with the suspension rebuild. This has given me the needed experience to rebuild the front end on my 240 next (it is much worse than this TD).
The pile of old parts:

I am planning to sandblast and remove all the bad parts from the LCA's, and spindles and paint the parts. I will install new bushings and ball joints, and then use them for my 240 suspension rebuild.