i am the original owner of a 560sel that was manfactured for the u.s. market in october, 1986.

it has 255,000 miles and has been meticulously maintained. it has been my favorite vehicle since i purchased it in december 1986.

over the last 25,000 miles, when the rear end negotiates change of grade, at any speed, sometimes, not always, a 'graunching" noise will be emitted from the rear suspension.

recently, the rear suspension makes a clicking noise all the time under braking, and still occasionally makes the "graunching" noise. the car has also become handling mysterious from time to time.

orginally, i thought the clicking and the handling mysteries derived from front-end problems.

so, my mechanic and i drove the car, put it up on a lift and evaluated the front-end suspension. it was fine.

so we checked the rear suspension. he identifies the problem as this bearing in the rear caliper bracket needing to be replaced. he says that he has only done this job once before, principally because mine is about the only 1986 560sel that he services with so many miles.

he says that the job is about 12 hours of labor to replace left and right. does this sound about right to you suspension experts out there?

if it does sound accurate, and the job is done, then i am of the opinion that all the other bearing and bushing components of those suspension assemblies be renewed at the same time...as there is just no sense to dismantle all of that hardware without performing a complete renovation.

any disagreement with that opinion?

because my mechanic has only done this job once before, and is not looking forward to the effort, i thought to ask if anyone out there has any insights into special intricacies of this job. if you do, i would love hearing your thoughts.

from examing later model 126's in his shop, today, it would appear as if benz revised[simplified] the design of this rear caliper mount at some date. if this is the case, is there any good argument that could be made for revising the rear suspension of my vehicle with the updated design? assuming that such a revision could even be made.

all ears.