The front passenger side suspension is making some awful noise. It sounds like a sqweaky spring if I bounce on the front of the car and seems to be coming the spring itself. The spring doesnt appear to be broken The noise sounds like rubber grabbing metal when I turn the wheel but creaks when I hit a bump. Any ideas what this could be? I am starting to think strut bushing.

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95 E300 Diesel 200K

It sounds like classic dry ball-joint noise.

Try injecting some grease into the ball-joint boot and massaging it in.

Could be other things also, but turning the wheels pretty much only involves the strut and the ball-joint.

That sucker seizing can cause it to fail, a potentially dangerous condition.

Unfortunately, the '95 for some reason, doesn't have a replaceable ball-joint IIRC, you need to buy the entire control arm.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

I dug up some info where someone drilled the ball joint cap and put in a grease zert. I may do that rather than puncturing the boot.

It is possible to buy replacement ball joints tho I am not not sure how they would be replaced. They are probably pressed in.

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95 E300 Diesel 200K

The early 124s had pressed-in ball joints, but from what I understand, the later ones have a welded-in ball-joint.

'95 is definately later.

Puncturing the boot is easy, and using a zirc-to-needle adapter (available everywhere) the hole tends to be self-healing. Drilling and tapping is better (provided you don't introduce abrasives) because you can force the grease around the joint, ... I choose easy on an aging ball-joint.

Of course it's easy to say that when I keep a spare set of control arms around.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

>>'95 is definately later.

I've pressed a new ball joint into my 1995 E300D.

I'm not sure exactly which cars have the non-replaceable ball joints, and if it's different in the US to Europe.

On the underside of the ball joint there appears to be a ring that is threaded in and requires a spanner wrench to remove the ring. Was yours ssomething like that?

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95 E300 Diesel 200K

Yes, there is a ring, with a cut-out that points in towards the centreline of the car.

But, it doesn't unscrew, the ball joint is pressed into the lower arm - there are shallow splines which grip the lower arm.

In the first post of this thread;

http://forums.mercedesclub.org.uk/showthread.php?t=45711&highlight=ball+joint

There's a picture of;

a) the lower arm of a W124 which does not have removable ball joints - your lower arm will not look like this

b) the press in ball joint - you can see both the shallow splines, and what you had described as a ring

Thankfully, the press in ball joints are cheap - I paid £13 each for mine a few months ago from my local MB dealer.

I have no first hand knowledge, but seems like I remember reading that it is the later wagons that don't have the replaceable ball joints. Don't take this as gospel......

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Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

>>it is the later wagons

Sorry Jimmy, I should have said - mine's an estate car.

Thank you everyone for the replies. I will have car up in the air tomorrow and report back what I find.

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95 E300 Diesel 200K

Indeed it was a dry ball joint. Needle injected grease and all is better....for a little while at least. Add rebuild control arms to maintenance list.

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95 E300 Diesel 200K