W108 250SE Front suspension

[Tassie Tiger]

Hi All,
I need to replace the suspension lower control arm outer pivot bolt and the king pin lower bearing/carrier. I have read in the manuals that the front spring, shock absorber, disc and brake caliper need to be removed. Is it possible to simply support the lower control arm with a jack and remove the bolt, lower the arm, remove the old carrier then re-assemble with new components?
I look forward to your comments and advice.
Regards,
Tassie Tiger.

[MunichTaxi]

I doubt anyone here will advise you to do this.
In theory, it could be done. However, you could lose your life.

[Tomguy]

You don't replace just the bolt, but the whole LCA bushing, and to do that without removing the kingpin from the LCA bushing is impossible. When you do, the hub assembly will simply fall, so it's easier to remove it to prevent that.

To not remove it all and do it would be tricky, and since it'd be so tricky it'd also be very very dangerous. I've done dangerous work on the front suspension, using the car's weight to compress the spring, but Tassie, what you're looking to do sounds suicidal.

[Tassie Tiger]

Thanks for your responses.
I had a closer look this weekend on how to tackle this job and the safest way is to compress the spring and remove the king pin. I won't be taking any short cuts.
Tassie Tiger

[Mike D]

Good man! We enjoy your posts and it's tough to type with both arms in a cast.

[Tony H]

Some of the most terrifying moments of my life were removing the front springs from my 3.5 coupe. The manual suggests using a pit jack (a jack fixed to a rail on the lift or pit) then unbolting the inner pivot and lowering the control arm with the spring. I used a floor jack and was concerned that the jack would shoot off to the side. Also the spring is so long when relaxed that my jack bottomed out before the spring was released. In retrospect I must have been crazy. Also as Tom mentioned you should replace your King pins as well if your link pins are worn.
A spring compressor cannot be used as the area is too tight to fit one in.
I was thinking about fabricating a bolt on jig to compress the spring with the control arm when I reassemble. If I did it again I would remove the complete front subframe and then dissasemble using a jig that supports the spring.

[wbain5280]

I'm doing my FS on my 220S. I unbolted the large bolt from the outer end of the LCA and lowered the arm downwards. The spring did not pop out but did slip sideways slightly. It's currently sitting on my carport floor as is the LCA. I had to use my reciprocating saw and 5 blades to Cut the upper camber adjusting bolt. Use a 32mm regular sized socket to unbolt the large inner socket bolts.

I tried to pass grease through the kingpin and could get it through one end. I used my heat gun to heat up the kingpin to soften the hardened grease inside the passages. Once the hardened grease began to bubble and soften, I could pass grease through both ends.

I have not been able to seperate the kingpin from the lower trunion. There is a shim insode the kinpin assembly used to set the correct play. There is a writeup on how to do this over on the Pagoda W113 site. The simplest method is to assemble the kingpin without the shim, measure the play and select the shim minus the allowed play. New kingpin bushings need to the reamed not honed.

http://www.sl113.org/forums/default.asp

Search for kingpin in 'general discussion'

http://www.sl113.org/forums/search.asp

I'm going to clean the upper and lower control arms at the spray wash.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b177/wb300se/MB_220S/DSC_0063.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b177/wb300se/MB_220S/DSC_0075.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b177/wb300se/MB_220S/DSC_0076.jpg

I'll take more pics tonight

[Tony H]

To separate my lower carrier from the kingpin I clamped the spindle in a vise and tapped the kingpin out with a brass hammer. I used the method of assembling the kingpin and measuring the play to determine the washer thickness. The assembly must be torqued to the specified tighness before measuring the play. I had to have 2 of my old thrust washers machined to the correct thickness because the compensating washers that came with the kingpin kits were not the correct thickness. I should be reassembling it all in the next few weeks(as soon as I get done re-staining my house, etc)

Originally Posted by wbain5280

I'm doing my FS on my 220S. I unbolted the large bolt from the outer end of the LCA and lowered the arm downwards. The spring did not pop out but did slip sideways slightly. It's currently sitting on my carport floor as is the LCA. I had to use my reciprocating saw and 5 blades to Cut the upper camber adjusting bolt. Use a 32mm regular sized socket to unbolt the large inner socket bolts.

I tried to pass grease through the kingpin and could get it through one end. I used my heat gun to heat up the kingpin to soften the hardened grease inside the passages. Once the hardened grease began to bubble and soften, I could pass grease through both ends.

I have not been able to seperate the kingpin from the lower trunion. There is a shim insode the kinpin assembly used to set the correct play. There is a writeup on how to do this over on the Pagoda W113 site. The simplest method is to assemble the kingpin without the shim, measure the play and select the shim minus the allowed play. New kingpin bushings need to the reamed not honed.

http://www.sl113.org/forums/default.asp

Search for kingpin in 'general discussion'

http://www.sl113.org/forums/search.asp

I'm going to clean the upper and lower control arms at the spray wash.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b177/wb300se/MB_220S/DSC_0063.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b177/wb300se/MB_220S/DSC_0075.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b177/wb300se/MB_220S/DSC_0076.jpg

I'll take more pics tonight