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Any work involving the removal of springs on these beasts should be approached with a caution. We all have varying degrees of mechanical skills. In addition, unless we work on cars eight to ten hours a day, we don't have near the everyday experience of dealing with them that a professional mechanic has.
Plus, most of us don't have a mechanic buddy who is willing to come to our location and oversee our work. That is why we rely on this forum so heavily. There are some jobs that are best turned over to a professional; anything involving spring removal may be one of them. It isn't worth losing an eye or getting maimed or killed over. |
The compressors are really cheap now. I bought a Klann knockoff from Taiwan a decade ago that works great. It cost me $150. The new ones from China Mainland cost $100 the last time I saw them. Those might be scary but they look like they’ll work.
A lot better than no compressor. Yikes:eek: As for safety I wear gloves and glasses. The Bell helmet may be a good call. Cannot be too safe when you’re dealing with a cannon. I work with the axis of the spring parallel to me. That is, if the spring breaks the compressor thread it’ll shoot most of it’s energy in a safe direction. I also work with it on the lawn, so if it does go boing it doesn’t have anything to recoil off of and surprise me. Finally when it is compressed, if I’m going to be doing some suspension work like ball joints or anything that will delay me, I decompress the spring ...I don’t leave it like a cocked ballista in my driveway. Not the best precautions but I’ve stayed out of trouble. Good luck. You are scary. Rent the tool from somebody here. Don’t go to arseholes like Midas or Menike. You’ll be sold too many additional services and all of them suck. Edit- for goodness sakes. I just checked eBay and you can get a set of compressors for $55 shipped. Buy a set and be done with it. |
Last visit to a Meineke they had a 20 something manning the front desk. He was texting on his smart phone and acted like it was a total bother dealing with customers.
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NO COMPRESSOR NEEDED FOR REAR SPRINGS
If you are changing the springs on the rear, no compressor is needed! All you need to do is jack up the rear of the car, and place jack stands just forward of the rear of the front subframe mounting bolts (they need to be loosened). Remove the wheels, and shocks. Loosen the large bolts that hold the front of the subframe to the car. Only about four revolutions should do. Put your floor jack under the differential, and remove the four bolts holding the rear diff mount to the car. Lower the jack all the way, and the springs SHOULD FALL OUT. If they don't, loosen the front bolts a little more. Now, if you are doing the FRONT springs, you will definitely need a quality spring compressor.
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I put thin shims up front and called it a day - and Yes I did use the compressor. Fixed saggy butt. As stated here those coils on mb are very closely spaced. The autozone compressor won’t work. So there is Benz mystique at work. Btw I used the cheap Meyle shims and they make noise after five years. Next time I’ll get OE. |
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If it were my car I'd call a minimum of four euro indy repair companies and ask for a quote for labor. Ask them if you can bring your own parts....some allow it, some don't. Ask them how much time it will take them to perform the work. Now take the amount of time they quote and double it.
That figure will be the approximate time it takes someone who is not experienced to perform the same job. Take that figure and multiply it times $50/hour. Say eight hours times $50 would be $400 out of hip national bank plus busted and skinned up knuckles, wrenches breaking loose coming back and hitting you in the face, etc etc. Another idea; I've noticed that indy repair shops located outside the big city, i.e. jerkwater charge substantially LESS to do the same repairs the big city guys charge big bucks for. Yes, you need to do some yelp.com checking and/or acquire the yellow pages for the jerkwater areas but you may find a quality, competent indy who will do work for you for substantially less money than the big city indies. Speaking of which, one of my associates decided he needed two new cars. He shopped the big city dealers who weren't willing to cut a deal. He ultimately went to a small jerkwater car dealer who sold him the exact same cars the way he wanted them optioned for $12,000 LESS than the big city dealers. He has a vacation home which requires him to travel through jerkwater so he simply stops in and gets his oil changed, general maintenance etc. $12,000.00 is $12,0000.00 anyway you look at it. |
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Ordered the parts, shocks, springs, and spring pads. Well. see what happens.
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Keep us updated on the rear, if it's an easy job, that's the first thing happening to mine this coming year. Sick of the ass hunkering down all the time!
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You just really have to remove the shocks, drop the exhaust, unbolt the single round diff mount and then lower the subframe to the lowest point until the spring can fall out. Once the spring is fully extended and it's still there, you might need to pry it out a little bit. Of course if you still can't get it out, then you can resort to loosening the front sub frame mounts. . |
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Unless you live in Arizona, hope you don’t need to loosen the subframe bolts...
Bring a 3/4” breaker bar or a 1/2” one and a Long pipe for leverage... TIGHT... Usually, all cars prior to 124 design don’t need the compressor for REAR spring removal... You can do it with a 124 design, but if you are changing links, it’s much easier with the short shaft KLANN compressor... |
I can't thank you guys enough!
If it does have to come down to loosing the subframe bolts, is it advised I buy new subframe mounts ahead of time just in case the old ones are destroyed? |
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