coil spring compressor
 

I am in need of a coil spring compressor for my 89 420 SEL. I would rather not spend $500 - $1000 to purchase and am looking for some advice on renting one. I have called around our local automotive parts stores and found NAPA and Autozone each have one (by their description) that would work. Many of you have cautioned purchasing or renting certain types of compressors for their lack of safety when used on a Mercedes vehicle. As this is a great concern to me, I would appreciate any advice on these two options as well as possibly renting one from Performance Products/some other supplier.

The internal cheapo will not work on a 126 spring. You can't get it in the hole at top.
Rent the unit form Performance products. It is much safer.

Dave

coil spring compressor
 

Thanks - I have rented the compressor from Performance Products and it is on its way.

Just curious:
How much do they get for that?

coil spring compressor
 

It's $85.00 + tax and shipping. I live in Ohio and the total cost was about $100.00. This was for 3 weeks: they estimate a week to ship to you, a week to use and a week to return it.

I would just state that these things are insanely expensive for what they are. One should be able to buy such a tool for that rental cost. It's just not that complicated. I guess there is just not enough volume to get other toolmakers to jump in the market...

Check Harbor Freight. They have a vairety of spring compressers. ball joint busters, etc., at very cheap prices.

csnow

Have you done the coil spring compression job? I have done it on both the 82 300TD and the 65 Mustang. The Harbor Freight compressor was adequate for the Muatang. But wholefully inadequate for the Mercedes. The amount of force in mercedes Spring is tremendous. I would not want a cheap coil spring on the size coil spring in the Mercedes.

Heres the other concern. You cannot use the HF tools the way they were designed to be use. Anytime your "rigging" something the chances of injury is tremendous.

A couple of stories.
A dealer had the compressor release while at full compression, It did quite a bit of damage. They were exptremely lucky no one was jurt. If it hit anyone it would have killed them.
A dealer had a mechanic use an impact wrench on their unit and stripped the treads at the fully compressed position. They weren't shure what to do with it. The fire department recommended they bury it encased in cement. Thats what they did.

These coils are time bombs if not treated with respect.



kip Foss

I have a lot of the Harbor Freight tools in my shop. I WOULD NOT use any HF coil spring compressor on a Mercedes. They have some great tools at great prices but quality and consistency in manufacturing, I wouldn't bet my life on their stuff. Not with a Mercedes coil spring.

Do yourself a favor when it comes to coil springs, Be safe, Its your life.

Dave

Yeah, I've already done several of these. I have like 4 different kinds of compressors. None of those work well out of the box. I manage to make them work every time with some custom adaptation.
If you have a welder, you can knock something together cheaply enough.

However, it is unfortunate that 'the right tool' is such big cake when it is a relatively simple contraption. Big barrier to entry for the DIY set. That rental fee alone could go a long way towards whatever suspension parts one needs to buy, and what a hassle...