Hpooey .

I bought a new W123 upper control arm, Pelican says the OEM is N.L.A. but it is, I needed it now and the M-B Classic Center has a price issue they won't fix (SIX TIMES RETAIL PRICE .

Pelican screwed up the will call order yet again by failing to read the comments so no one bothered to call me last week and let me know the order was ready for pickup .

A shame as they really did try to do a good job until fairly recently .

I hope this damned ball joint and dust boot don't crumble into junk like so many other Chinese ball joints doo .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

I routinely swap the rubber boots which come on new ball joints and tie-rod ends, since those don't last, and fit a polyurethane boot. I buy the Energy Suspension ones. Shop ebay, or the local Tognotti's has them. I usually have a set for Mopar w/ various sizes.

__________________
1984 & 1985 CA 300D's
1964 & 65 Mopar's - Valiant, Dart, Newport
1996 & 2002 Chrysler minivans

Yeah, I get these urethane ones on eBay called poly boots. I think they’re Czech? Nice quality. I have a good sized backup pile for tie rods and lower ball joints.

Perhaps there’s a way to rebuild the originals? Nobody does it but I figure they can be pressed in and out of that aluminum arm.

__________________
79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles
97 C280 147k miles

More great help and I THANK YOU .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Nate, just checked EBay and they are no longer called poly boots. I can find them by searching polyurethane balljoint boots. Made in Bulgaria, got my eastern blocks mixed up.

__________________
79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles
97 C280 147k miles

THANX ! .

I'm pretty sure my local O'Reilly's has them in stock as they carry a bunch of Hot Rodder items...

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Ooof. Has Lemfoerder quality changed as of late? They are OE on a lot of suspension parts for a lot of euro brands.

Neat to know about the poly boots, thanks!

I'm going to try it out in any case .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

I bought an idler arm bushing kit for my 107 that was from Lemfoerder. It did not work properly. I found out by comparing with the OE unit I subsequently bought, that the dimensions were incorrect. The Lemfoerder box clearly said Lemfoerder Aftermarket, Made in China.

So it seem they have an alternative low cost supply channel from China. So don't assume they old reliable brand names are still good.

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Graham
85 300D,72 350SL, 98 E320, Outback 2.5

The boots cracked after about 1.5 years but I have had Uro Upper Control Arms on for over 10 years. But I am a low mileage driver.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

Yeah, boot swapping also works if you trash a boot on a good joint doing other work and don't want to go through the trouble of swapping the joint too.

__________________
CC: NSA

All things are burning, know this and be released.

82 Benz 240 D, Kuan Yin
12 Ford Escape 4wd

You're four times

It's hard to

more likely to

concentrate on

have an accident

two things

when you're on

at the same time.

a cell phone.

www.kiva.org It's not like there's anything wrong with feeling good, is there?

You know they build whole entire Mercedes cars in china these days.

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CENSORED due to not family friendly words

Chinese parts don't belong on these cars. Avoid URO and Meyle to stay safe.

__________________
Why I will never do business with "DieselKraut" again

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/mercedes-benz-used-parts-sale-wanted/378935-why-i-will-never-do-business-dieselkraut-again.html

Most likely when I need new UCA ball-joints, I'll re-use the arms and press in new ball-joints, as I do in my 1960's cars (screw-in in Mopars). The main reason is that I hate to waste good parts, like the UCA aluminum. But other reasons are that it can save cost and, most importantly, I can control the quality. When you buy a new UCA with bushings and ball-joint, you don't know what parts they installed, but Chinese is a good guess. The UCA sees little force since the spindle gives it a long lever arm. All I've had to do on my 1985 300D (now at 380K miles) is replace the rubber bushings on the sway bar connection since they fell apart to cause a rattle. That is fairly easy as no pressing is required (tapered rubber). I recall having to unbolt the UCA pivot to swing it out. I did have to replace the lower ball joints (recall, might have been just my 1984 300D).

__________________
1984 & 1985 CA 300D's
1964 & 65 Mopar's - Valiant, Dart, Newport
1996 & 2002 Chrysler minivans

For the complete front end rebuild I successfully did on my 1985 300D a few years ago, I had suspicions that of all the parts needed (and there were many), the possibility of some Chinese product (that I could easily identify) finding its way into the mix was reasonable. The strategy I adopted to try to prevent any Chinese product from getting onto the car:
1. Acquire parts from brands that I had reason to reasonably believe wouldn't be made in China or include Chinese components (this is not a completely failsafe solution).
2. Collect and closely inspect all of the parts before I started on the job.
The result: I found one instance (don't recall what it was) of a Made in China part. No, I couldn't detect something that had no place of origin on it but so far as I know, I caught the one culprit.

So far, so good with the parts installed.