Any Trailing Arm Gurus ? Help !
 

Howdy,

OK, the parking brake / emergency brake issue is now temporarily solved and I am OK with the results.

Because of the extensive rot and rust in the trailing arms, brake components, cables, and other bits and pieces, I think it just might be easier to swap out the entire trailing arms on both sides.

I have a set still on my skeleton of a parts car which is a nice southern rust free car ... that which is left ...

The swap looks straight foward to me. Actually, it looks incredibly simple.

Any one ever swap these out ? Is it just a straight foward swap ? I have access to a lift and jacks, et cet. I am concerned about unscrewing the parts from the Sleeper since the rust looks thru and thru and its everywhere, but it might be OK to take that gamble.

So, any trailing arm guru's out there ? The parking brake gurus certainly helped me fix my parking brake issue. 4x's was a charm on that one.

Thanks again and thanks in advance.;)

Yes easier to swap... Good treads about subframe removal....

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/276507-rear-subframe-removal-bushing-replacement.html


http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/302001-hey-charlie-%7Bsubframe%7D.html


.

I looked at this because I wanted to know what a trailing army was.

If the trailing arms are rotted, arn't the attachment points as well.

Yes, it is a gamble ... I already thought of this "I am concerned about unscrewing the parts from the Sleeper since the rust looks thru and thru and its everywhere, but it might be OK to take that gamble."

I hope not ! LOL

yeah, it'll be very simple. hardest thing is swapping the brake cables over. if the donor arms have good parking brake assemblies, just swap the cables over as well!
be sure and keep the best bolts, and if your sleeper is as rusty as you say, prepare yourself for some MAJOR HARD BOLTS TO LOOSEN AND REMOVE!!!
you better have some large cheater bars!

oh, feel free to bring it over to my house for the swap if you like... you know where I am.

Thanks John,

BTW -- any luck or any leads on the throttle linkage ... I got a nice bounty out there. A set of injectors, cleaned, pop tested, and balanced ... And yes, it is really, really rusty and rotted. I was underneath it today, but I forgot my stupid digital camera.

Hmmm.
you might want to bring it over to my house, and swap into my nearly rust free 240 I just got...
I crushed both of those other 240's I had... WOW they were rusty...

That might be a plan. When would you be free ?

What I got now is not really safe and it is questionably road worthy. I am going to pressure check all 5 tomorrow. I suspect the engine itself might not be the hot either.

Is your old girl really almost rust free ? I got one which said it had some rust ... LOL.

I guess english is an inherently ambigious language ...

BTW -- I think operation switch-a-roo would not take more than half a day --

Are you serious or just jerking me around ... LOL Just kidding

BTW --

Assuming my wife does not work me silly this upcoming week on projects, I think I can get the old girl reasonably road worthy where I am not anxious or nervous about driving it. If so, could I head up next Saturday? or the following Saturday ? I still got 75 degree weather now and I suspect Charlotte is not that crappy yet. Actually, I am looking at 2 weeks, and that assumes I can work every day on the old girl. I got a very long list of items. I can scratch off a bunch if your car is a viable subsitute since I can just focus on the mechanical items now, but the mechanical stuff really needs to be addressed for me to drive long distance again.

pfft, you know me. I don't jerk around... we can work out some deal I think
the car does have rust in it. there is a seam of rust from the front of the car to the back on the driver's side that needs to be cleaned up. but ZERO structure rust, and a REALLY nice original paint color. there is also a palm size rust spot under the antenna in the trunk. no place else.
I'll be home working on stuff after 1:00 tomorrow, and the PO lives in columbia too, so I could get the title to you, and get you ownership in no time.
if sunday is better for you, let me know. you still got my number?

Greazzer, most of the info you need is in these two threads.

When I did my 85 300D, it wasn`t too bad of a job. being a Calif car, no rusty bolts to contend with.

You won`t need a spring compressor for the rear springs. remove the shocks, , then remove the calipers and hang them up on the sway bar. disconnect the sway bar links. then with a jack under the Diff, remove the 4 13mm bolts. lower the diff down and the springs will fall out.


I will say, if you pull some trailing arms off a parts car or one in the yards, do not cut the brake cables. I did, and when installing the PNP one`s, I then had to figure out how to remove and install the one`s off my old arms. just take them apart where the two meet under the car from the wheels.

reading through the various Sub Frame, Trailing Arm threads, seems like the job is harder and maybe more confusing that when actually getting in and do it.

Just make sure the car is well secured and safely jacked up. after the sub frame is dropped, there is nothing but the jack stands holding up the rear of the car. when I had mine out and looking under there, it gave me the willys thinking, all this thing has to do is move/roll back etc... and Iam dead. :eek:

BE SAFE!!!!!

Charlie.

Thanks Charlie & John !

Yes John I still have your # ! and I did not lose the NUMEROUS Directions I have to your house since I was too dumb in the first place to be able to follow instructions ! BTW -- is that Larry P's. car that your talking about ? In any event, no way this weekend. I just got up, wife made breakfast so I know I got my choirs ahead of me this weekend. I will keep you posted. Also a string attached ... LOL

On W123s most of the lager portion of the Trailing Arm is made of thin sheet Metal.
The attachment points are more sturdy.

Funny this thread should come up...

I just changed that whole assembly yesterday! My driver's side arm had rusted to the point the spring had come through the bottom of the arm.:eek:

I made a temporary welding-job to it a few weeks ago, to give me time to find a good donor set-up

The donor was a 200 gasser saloon car. I obtained the whole lot plus some other trim-parts, bumper, lights and stuff for the pricely sum of £50--Well happy.:D

I fitted the subframe, trailing-arms, park-brake etc and cables from the saloon car to my wagon.--These parts are the same.

This is the way I did it--which seemed the easiest....

I first removed the arms and subframe from donor, cleaned up and rust-proofed, repainted blue the three major parts, fitted new bushes to the arms and subframe.
--Everyone paints these things black--I gotta be different--Mine are bright blue!:P

Built up the arms to the subframe and renewed the brake-components. The cables from the donor were re-used as they were in near perfect condition.
--Those park-brake springs are a fiddle aint they!

--So, now we had the subframe with arms attached and all the brake parts fitted.
(The wheel-bearings were not replaced as the old donor hadn't done many miles and were smooth)

The whole diff, subframe, arms and brake-cables were removed from the wagon and the diff changed over to the 'new' assembly. The low-mileage donor diff wasn't suitable to fit the 300D--which was a shame--wrong ratio.

--There is no need to remove the half-shafts from the diff, as the outer splined ends will slide out of the hubs--but only when the arms are at their lowest position and resting on their stops--Without the shocks/actuators attached--They will not come out if the shocks and subframe are still attached to car....

The flex-disc was changed over at the same time, and I did some waxproofing of the underside while the assembly was out.

I made one mistake during re-fitting.....

I didn't re-locate the drive-shaft into the flex-disc before the assembly was bolted up, so had to drop the centre-bearing to allow enough forward movement to re-locate the centre of the coupling....:rolleyes:


The job is relatively easy, although strenuous doing it solo, and not used to 'wrenching' daily. Ive aches and pains today in muscles I didn't know I had!:D

--Definitely would recommend a helper!

I used three jacks and two tall and very robust axle-stands to do the job, the stands located on the rear chassis, as I have deleted the factory jack-points two years ago when I re-constructed the sills in that area.

--I had the car almost resting on a solid brick wall at the front end and had it raised up about 1.5-2 foot off the ground.

I think that the job would have been very difficult without having the three jacks to carefully lift the assembly into position in the right place, more or less level...

The job took me 8 hours with a couple of breaks here and there--probably an hour or so.....
I should have taken some pictures--but didn't...:(