I just did my front brakes on my 82,000 mile 86 SL (1 caliper bad,frozen piston, 1 seems OK) and put Bilsteins on the front (nasty, but doable at home). The rear calipers feel like crap so I'm going to replace those - I spent a lot on rotors/pads and furthermore, I don't want to do this again anytime soon! Anyway, I'm a little worried looking at the shop manual instructions about "removing the shocks from the bottom"...my question is, how high would I have to get the back of the car to do this? I have EXCELLENT jacks, jackstands, ramps, chocks...but I hate to jack up a car more than absolutely necessary and I've got to have a complete backup system for me to even think of putting any part of myself under a car. Some people think I'm paranoid but after you know someone who had a car fall on them you tend to be this way.

Also, if I scribe or paint exactly where the shocks were in relation to the top and bottom mounts, will the alignment still be good enough? Seems like it would be, if it was OK to begin with...