Is there a DIY or decent thread anywhere for doing w123 front sway bar bushings?
 

Like the title says... I generally know it's a big job, but guidance would be good.

It's pretty easy.

I'll find links for you

13mm deep socket. either move the brake booster or use some kind of trickery to work around it.

From the wiki in the condensed sticky thread
Start at step 19
PeachPartsWiki: Front End Suspension Rebuild

The 126 info is in the 126 FSM. The passenger side is relatively easy. The brake master and other things that are in the way have to come out on the driver side. My local indy said that having the ends rust off of the sway bar would result in the car being trashed if someone had to pay for shop labor. Replacing bushings isn't quite as hard but will be significant.

Can you get to the passenger side easily on a 123? If so, pull the top part of the bracket and examine the bushing. Make sure that the sway bar is unloaded. The 2 cars I have (84 & 85SD) had almost new looking bushings and there is no reason to change them. Perhaps yours is the same.

Regardless, I wouldn't go that far into the front end to only replace sway bar bushings. These cars resort to handling like in their former glory days with all new parts.

There is a serious metal on metal suspension related knock from the area behind the glove compartment.

The car has only 120 k miles. Lower ball joints and upper control arms are new (Lemforder).
In a previous thread I asked about the knock -- I figured it was the strut mount arm bushing. The input I got was that it sounded like a sway bar bushing.

The car is not rusty. At all.

Any new input welcome.

pull the battery tray and have a look. access is excellent once the tray is out.

Brake support? With only 120K miles, i would doubt that.

To replace the 2 Sway Bar Bushings where the bar it attached to the Fire Wall, You will have to remove the battery and battery tray, along with the Brake MC and Booster to gain access.

You will need to remove the bar from the upper Control Arms on both sides, as VSTECH posted in in post #4.

The Bar needs to be loose to pull it away from the Fire Wall to R&R the Bushings.

Remove the 2 nuts on each side, remove the "U" Bracket. Might be a good idea to replace the nuts with new ones. They are the NY-LOCK nuts.


I did this job on the 85 300D, but I swapped in a 300TD bar which is a bigger job. But after I finally got the bar through the small hole in the body, the rest is easy.
Then it just a matter of bolting is all up and torqueing the nuts/bolts.

Any one swapping in the TD bar, there are two different Bushing part #`s.
One for the 300TD and another for the 300D/240D/280E/CE/CD etc...

Charlie