I want to verify that the ball joints on my 1982 S300D (W126) are OK before I take the car for its inspection. I can't find much helpful in the FSM. The boots are not torn. I have checked the upper ball joints by shaking the car by the bumper and observing the upper joint. But I can find no MB procedure for checking the lower one. Becasue the spring rests on the lower control arm, the standard procedure would be to jack up on the lower arm and try to wigggle the lower joint. There was no movement observeable. Is that it, or is there a specific MB procedure?

With the car jacked up by the lower control arm, take a pry bar (pipe, 2x4 etc) and have someone pry the wheel up with the pry bar while you look at the lower ball joint and observe if there is any relative motion. For the upper ball joint push and pull the top portion of the tire in and out while looking at the upper ball joint for relative motion.

One thing you have to make sure of is that when you lift the car by the lower A arm, the suspension does not unload completly such that any of the suspension components hit the stops. It may require you to move the jack as close to the wheel as posible.

John Roncallo

Thanks for the confirmation, thats pretty much what I did.