Yup, I've got the same tool. For what its worth, my trouble with the job was with a brand new set of taller springs, so perhaps that's where the additional PITA factor came into play. The originals came out no problem and were considerably easier to compress.
The new ones were a heck of a lot stiffer and made it harder to untrap the tool, as well as get into position.

By untrap I mean the angle of the curve of the spring torqued the lower spring compressor plate against the center section of the tool. 90% of my time involved was extricating the compressor from the spring after install.

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Costing everything out led me to the conclusion that for a hundred dollars more than DIY a mechanic does it in a garage instead of me doing it in the parking lot in a blizzard. Trying to get it home on an icy hi way with steep hills would probably end badly for me

Thanks again to everybody for the advice

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1978 300D

Happy that you have this under control.

Can we at least get pictures of the broken spring ?


.

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Ya I will try to get a picture up later tonight. When the good weather comes I am going to add doing the other spring to my list of projects.

Contacting the PO revealed that the rear springs were done a few years ago but came out of a different model Mercedes. A 450 SE or SEL or something.

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1978 300D

If your rear springs are out of a w116 (a much heavier car), you may want to ask your wrench to have a look at the way the rear suspension behaves when the car is on the hoist.

A while back, a member on the STD performance forum was promoting using w116 rear springs to replace the self-levelling setup in w123 wagons. One guy who took that approach (a mechanic) said they fit and worked, but when the car was on the hoist you could just about play the brake hoses like guitar strings, due to the extra expansion of the springs stretching them out.

As I recall, he installed limiting straps to take the load off the soft brake lines when the car was off the ground.

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Mac
2002 e320 4matic estate│1985 300d│1980 300td
Previous: 1979 & 1982 & 1983 300sd │ 1982 240d

“Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

That is good to know

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1978 300D

Went to my trunk to pull out the broken pieces of the coil spring and they are gone? WTF?

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1978 300D

shop probably recycled them for ya. Though I don't see why they would be in your trunk, unless you mentioned the old spring was in there

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That was my thought too, the "new" coil looks clean and freshly painted though. Short of removing the spring not sure how to test that

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1978 300D

There has to be some other reason causing the over extension. Internal extension bumpers in the shocks or external bumpers limit droop travel not spring tension. I'm not sure what this car should have.

I have been under my car plenty of times on when it was up on ramps replacing the floor but never with a hoist so I cannot shed any light on that one.

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1978 300D

Shops recycle metal, in particular (if local bylaw allows) they sometimes have junk cars parked out back that they fill up with as much scrap metal as they can to get more $$$ when the hulk goes to the yard.

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Mac
2002 e320 4matic estate│1985 300d│1980 300td
Previous: 1979 & 1982 & 1983 300sd │ 1982 240d

“Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

There was a guy on kijiji recently with 2 300D's for sale near Orangeville. He was moving his shop or something. You might want to give CL a try for Mercedes Diesel and see what comes up.

http://ontario.kijiji.ca/f-Diesel-Mercedes-cars-vehicles-classic-cars-W0QQCatIdZ122QQKeywordZDieselQ20MercedesQQisProvinceSearchZtrue