For the last week or so, I have been hearing a creaking, groaning sound coming from the driver side front. Today I took it my indy who diagnosed it as either the shocking mount or the shock itself. He touched the top of the shock mount and said that it was very pronounced. Anyone had anything similar?

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87 300D 265Kmi
Factory rebuilt crate 603.96x engine at 200K

Yes.

The strut, upper mount plate and sway bar bushings are common failure items.


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Also inspect your lower ball joints. Worn joints will creak and if not addressed they will fail.

Once you are that far in, it is very little additional work to change the Bilstein shock as well. There is no bearing at the top of the strut-just a cone shaped fitting. There was very little damage apparent but the parts change fixed the problem. Mount plates in front had been changed in January. Bilstein had been in there 6 years.

__________________
87 300D 265Kmi
Factory rebuilt crate 603.96x engine at 200K

+1 on the ball joints and LCA bushings.

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both my kids cars went to junkyard in 2023
2008 ML320 CDI (Older son’s DD) fatal transmission failure, water soaked/fried rear SAM, numerous other issues, just too far gone to save (165k miles)
2008 E320 Bluetec (Younger son's DD) injector failed open and diluted oil with diesel, spun main bearings (240k miles)

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1987 300TD sold to vstech