W108 kingpin job

[n10]

So I am doing it this weekend.

First thing I have to say is this job sucks! A Huge nod to the guys that do this regularly, what a pain. Grease everywhere and lots of bashing and cussing.
I finally have one side mostly back together so it's beer time

I ended up scoring some spare spindles from benzfriends here in Seattle, (actually Burien) which made the job so much easier...for the most part. The spindles were free so long as I return my old ones.
I was able to get the new bushings in and honed to fit without having my car off the road for too long.

I went the route I found from BenzDr. in one of the searches I did. Instead of dropping the lower control arms from the subframe, it all came apart from the kingpin side. I am leaving the shocks connected as a safety precaution so the spring doesn't pop out in my face.

Anyway I might do a write up for those of you interested....
Pics will be few and far between b/c of the grease mess.

[Tony H]

Yes when I removed my front springs it was one of the more frightening things I have done. I'm going air suspension so I will not need to put them back in.

[JMela]

I'd be interested in a write-up. I've got the replacement parts for the job but not the time, it seems.

Did you replace any of the control arm 'pins' while you were in there?

[n10]

I replaced all of it! With the learning curve on the first side, and all involved it took a good 8 hours.

Getting the new bushings in place was a huge pain between the control arm ends.

I didn't take pics of the process since it was soo messy. Shortly I will post some pics of the through bolts from the lower bushing and one of the upper kingpin bushings...totally thrashed

I need an alignment but it drives and handles 10x better. Before it was squirrely and sloppy

[n10]

Busy day today but I wanted to pass these along....

The shorter piece is the threaded part going through the top of the kingpin, part of the eccentric set up.
The larger ones were in the lower control bushing.

Needless to say they were trashed