Greetings,
I also recently did some suspension work on my '97 C230.

In a previous post I mentioned that I found that tho sound deadening material that lines the transmission shaft, on the underside of the car, was sagging and hitting the flex disc on the drive shaft. This was causing some of the thumping/grinding suspension noise on my C230 and may be happening to you. I cut some of it out, near the flex disc at the transmission, to fix the problem.

To replace the ball joints you will need a gear puller. I got mine Sears. It takes a lot of effort to get the ball joint off. So plan on banging on it. Remember to support the bottom A-frame while you are doing this since, the spring is pushing on it and could hurt you. The ball joint does not need to be pressed in, only torqued to the proper value.

Good luck.