Quote:
Originally Posted by Zulfiqar
That spring is very long and under a lot of compression. If you have never seen a W124 spring in a box you wont know, its not like a regular chevy spring.
Even removing the control arms fully and making them almost vertical still holds the spring in its cup. Its that long. (be careful as you have disassembled the rollbar too, that bar limits the control arm downward swing)
Now to get this back into place, raise up the body of the car and install jack stands. leave the tire on, position a jack so you slowly raise the control arm up, once the joint butt is off the wheel rim barrel, the entire spindle will be free to move in any direction, have someone with mechanical skill and aptitude to position the spindle on the ball joint stud and then raise the jack upwards so it seats, then install the pinch bolt - make sure the whistle notch of the joint is lined up before you start any of the above.
The balljoint sits at a very sharp angle as the car has a 8 degree caster angle - so it wont go in easy and you will have to wrestle the spindle in the 1 and 7 oclock position to get it to line up.
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Thank you for your advice! I have seen the spring before, as I replaced them on my previous W124 and helped with that on a couple of W124-W210 we were servicing back in the day while I worked in the shop. This is why I feel so stupid about causing this predicament, as I have done the procedure before and should have thought ahead. Should NOT have underestimated the spring force and taken any shortcuts. Definitely a lesson in humility.
I will retry the procedure you proposed, however previously the ball joint wouldn't budge into the knuckle when touching the top of the hole and the car kept going up. Might have something to do with the vertical notch in the knuckle being closed up and resealed with RTV, I should probably try to get it loose before the next attempt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zulfiqar
Im not quite understanding how the car lifted itself off the jackstands? because I have done this job when I changed my W124 balljoints and put a jackstand under the control arm near the balljoint - The entire front of the cars weight was on the jackstands under the control arms.
did you not lower the car onto the jackstands?
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The car was resting on two jackstands, one near the jacking point and the other one underneath the LCA as close to the bushing as possible. Hence I am surprised this happened. Should have compressed the spring regardless I guess.