SAFETY REMINDER: Always pay attention to what you have done before you move on!
 

Evening Everyone,

Today my friend Mike and I set out to repair his mom's 420SEL. The sway bar broke right at the end.

Mike ordered a QP1000, sway bar saver repair kit and new TRW upper control arm.

We got the car up in the air, took off the wheel, and removed the rear bolt on the UCA.

Mike had a heck of a time removing the ball joint bolt. After trying a few different hammers, some butane/propane fueled heat he decided that we would remove the upper shock bolt, and brace the LCA, he figured that it was being held up and in place by that assembly and that if he removed it a few well placed smacks of the hammer would release the spindle.

A few wacks later, more heat, we both came up empty. We decided that only a ball joint fork would fix this. The only fork we had was at his house. So we hopped in the 560SEL and drove away.

Here is where it all went south.

1) Use ball joint fork to detach spindle from UCA....SUCCESS
2) Rotor, Spindle, lower control arm and spring rapidly fall...
3) Floor jack catches them and begins to creak/groan
4) Mike says to let it down slowly.
5) Without thinking I do so.
6) Rotor crashes into garage floor, bracing the assembly.
7) Bricks are shat as we realize what had just happened.

http://i.imgur.com/GmHA9fwl.jpg

8) Attempts at jacking the lower control arm fail. We couldn't get a good safe angle on it so we gave up.
9) Other ideas are brought up and quickly dismissed. Example: slowly raise the front end up and let the spring uncoil slowly.

So there we were, stuck with a nearly uncoiled spring, just being held in place by the lip on the spring plate.

I phoned home and was able to get my spring compressor and some ratchets/extensions brought down. The spring compressor was able to hold the spring at bay while we installed the upper shock bolt.

We were able to install the QP1000 and the new TRW control arm without a problem after that. Worked exactly as expected.

Moral of the story: PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU HAVE ALREADY DONE BEFORE YOU MOVE ON! If either of us had said "oh ****, the shock isnt bolted in, nothing is holding this up.

Well I'm glad nobody was hurt.

Yikes that could have been very bad!

Yikes. :eek: Lucky break there!

With the suspension that low I bet the spring was nearly relieved however. Probably 90%+

o...k... SO glad you had a spring compressor available!
next time, try a ball joint removal tool. HF has them in a kit that work fantastically!
I'd never rely on the shock to hold the spring anyway...

One good safe way when knocking/pulling out ball joint tapers is to loosen the nut, but leave it on a few threads. That way if you missed something important, it can only move a quarter inch or so. I had amazing luck last week in removing all 4 upper and lower joints by preloading them a bit, loosening the nuts, and hitting the side of the arm with a brass hammer - just like Ed China on Wheeler Dealers does so effortlessly. First time it ever really worked for me.

DG