The term is "damping".

124/201s have a "modified MacPherson Strut" front suspension. On a common MacPherson strut the spring is concentric with the strut, which is a suspension structural member that includes the damper. Mercedes moved the spring to between the lower control arm and chassis, thus the term "modified".

To change the shock on a conventional strut, the strut must be removed and disassembled, which mean removing the spring - but this is usually done on the bench.

With the Mercedes design the strut can be removed without disturbing the spring, which makes the job much simpler.

As stated a "strut" is a damper ("shock absorber") that is also a structural member of the suspension. A "shock absorber" just provides damping and is not part of the suspension structure.

On many designs the dampers contain the rebound stops, so they should not be removed unless weight is on the suspension. This can be determined by merely inspecting the suspension to see if threre is any obvious external rebound stop. If not, support the suspension before removing the shock.

Of course, I always recommend that one who plans to work on his car buy a service manual for the car, which should include remove and install procedures for most commonly changed components. What a novel idea!

There's no excuse NOT to have service information for most Mercedes being as how it's all on line.

http://mb.braingears.com/



Duke

so today i attempt to change out the rear shocks per anthonyb's nicely detailed writeup. i have the car jacked up, removed the shock bolt lower and upper. however when it came time to get the spring out, i couldnt do it no matter how i tried. the shocks in there right now are still relatively new, they were installed by a previous owner less than 1k miles ago before i bought this project car. needless to say the shocks were REAL hard to compress, especially the trunk mount. i unsuccessfully attempted to compress the shock pin from the trunk, given the small size of the pin. i then tried to compress the shock from the bottom in the wheel well and the thing wouldnt even budge. short of undoing the sway bar and letting the whole arm fall down, is there an easier way to get that shock out given the difficulty in compressing it? if that fails, would it be ill-advised to put a racing jack under the spring and control arm, jack it up slightly, undoing the sway bar link, and SLOWWWLLY releasing the jack so that the spring fully uncompresses, and pull out the fully extended shock? or should i throw in a spring compressor before undoing the sway bar link?

Oh boy. New, those shocks are almost impossible to get out. I think your best bet at this point would be to disconnect the sway bar link and slowly lower the control arm until the shock clears the frame. You really only need to lower the control arm another inch or two to get the shock to clear the hole.

If you have the spring compressor, you may want to install it while the spring is partially extended (if you can). I would be careful with it, whatever you do. The springs on these cars have been known to bend lesser compressors.

If you're installing sport shocks, how's come you're not also replacing the springs? The sport shocks will have less travel than the stock ones.

anthonyb,

i actually have vogtland sport springs installed already, which lowered the car about 2.25". looks real nice but the stock shocks cant handle the lowered stance with the stock compression so i have to throw in the bilstein sports to actually raise the front a little bit because it's so slammed. reason i didnt install the springs and shocks at the same time was because the place i got them from sent me the wrong application shocks. big headache but hopefully in the end i'll have everything working fine. i actually ended up bringing the car to a mechanic today to have the shocks/struts installed. the imminent danger of these springs coming out at anytime since the struts serve as rebound stops was a risk i really didnt feel comfortable taking. besides, it's 95 degrees here in chicago and working in the garage is hell on earth...literally. thanks again for all the help.

okay guys, check out the DIY I wrote up for the ball joints on the 124. Lots of pics and explains how to support the control arm and r&r the struts. pretty hazardous though, and not for the accident-prone. the 'correct' way is to get a really expensive MB spring compressor.

Robert

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89 300te 222,222
92 300e 190,000

thank's for all the great info.
also, thanks for pointing out the braingears site. i discovered it a few months ago, but they seemed to be having server storage problems. i never remembered to check back on it. of course, now that it's back online, i've already purchased my 124 service discs.

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1987 300E - champagne
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