phister

Did not need a washer on my endlink when I reinstalled everything.

StillNDADIRT

Does anyone know what size allen wrench you need to hold the top bolt on the spindle? I've gotten everything off but the bolt and i can't find a wrench that fits it.

albabenzi

7mm Allen wrench.

guanabara

The rear springs were quite rusted up. I replaced also the rubber seat on the top of the spring and a thin metal shim that goes on the bottom.
For the front struts I replaced the whole thing except for the springs which looked good.
My car has 105K miles. I noticed that it was very spongy. Going over 15MPG speed bumps or small pot holes was causing the struts to hit the stops and also the front bumper skirt to go lower enough to touch the road.
Probably the struts would be good for another few years before leaking oil or other dramatic failure modes, but why wait for that? I know that some people say that his or John;'s car struts were good for 500,000 miles. Good can be very relative if all you do is to drive on flat highways or if you are a fisherman and don't get sea sickness driving on a bouncy car. It is hard to decide based on a quasi static bounce test by pushing on each corner. First you can't push it fast enough to represent the road dynamic inputs to the suspension. Besides with hydraulic and compressed gas the front struts are not as simple as regular shocks. You really need to drive the car on test scenarios and observe the reaction on the wheels and the car body and also turn off the loud radio sounds and hear what the car suspension is trying to tell you. I noticed a remarkable deterioration on ride quality and safety in the last year. Perhaps because it is very cold on the east coast it exacerbated the reduced performance for the shocks. Funny enough all of the 4 hatch and hood cover shocks needed to be replaced to make sure that they went up by themselves as they used to. It seems almost like clock work.
I was contemplating the need to do the replacement or not for the front struts (it is hard work), but after reading so many comments and considering my car mileage and how it handled on bumps and pot holes I decided it was the time.
The shocks are usually cheaper on the many online parts stores selling oEM parts (the original shocks, mounts are made by Sachs), but there are good or better ones made by KYB and Billstein. Some may cause the ride to be a little stiffer/sporty. I stuck with the Sachs original specs (Touring). FCPEuro has the best deals for this car on shocks at the time I looked for it (plus they offer lifetime warranty), but others were very close and may beat it sometimes. Now when it comes to buying original springs and other parts that require research based on car VIN, I have finally found the best deal possible to get MB original parts at virtually wholesale prices. A Dealer in NC I guess decided it is about time to make available original parts at close to wholesale prices online. If you provide them with the VIN they even do the complete research and give you the correct part number for your car. They even guarantee that it will fit or the return is free. I were very impressed with the help they provided me over the holidays even with the nasty weather we had on the east coast. Parts arrived faster than when ordered from other places. Most were drop shipped directly from warehouses to allow me to get them very fast. Anyways, I am definetely keeping them on my contacts list. Tracy even helped me to get the latest correct part number for the radio/remote amplifier that goes on the rear hatch. I replaced it and now finally my remote FOB keys work as far as 2 blocks away and I went from 5 FM stations to >30. The AM and WB radio stations work fine too. I went through so much pain using those FOB with the unreliable infra-red sensors at the handles that I could write a book. Incidentally when it is very sunny out the infra red links to the handles are virtually dead, only at night with the sun down they work a few feet away from the door handles if angled right. (sometimes I would place the FOB front wrapped around my hand and cover the sensor window on the handle and it would work with the sun out. Anyways I digressed a bit, that's probably something for another stickie. Just follow this link for great discount on original parts:
OE discount parts
By the way, have you guys noticed how a lot of those discount part places online are sometimes charging even more than the retail price for original parts? is it so that after the "discounts/promos" they offer you still pay close to the retail price? I am now not even wasting much of my time with doubts of getting the correct and original parts. I go straight to the OE discount parts website. By the way, be patient , as you could see, they may be quite popular and busy by now. Tracy does a great follow up via emails. Do not try to call her to get "personal" attention at your convenient timing. You may live voice messages, but I found that she is faster to answer my questions via email.

One more thing, all the parts I got from them were shipped for free (anything above $50 total is shipped that way) and I got them in 2 or 3 business days as they drop ship from the nearest warehouse.

Lastly, just mention that Bas from MD sent you and they may even send you a nice MB hat with their logo on the back, just be nice and kind to her, haha.


01/24: update after a few days of driving on pot hole filled roads in MD and DC. The car feels dramatically better in handling , etc. I barely feel the holes on the road (with a 235/40/18 tire that is a notable statement). The front struts were really a very important change. I figured that the "bearing" on the top mount was so worn out that the strut stack was probably loose enough to make all the noises I was noticing when going over bumps besides the tires bouncing up and down without much shock reduction by the struts. I think that definitely even if the struts don't wear out by 100K the top mount will. The bearing is actually a special kind of plastic ring riding on the mount metal base. What I noticed is that the plastic ring was probably worn out more than half of its original thickness. That alone probably caused the struts to be a little loose . Probably tightening the top nuts would have reduced the sloppy mount and some of the noises when going over bumps, but the inefficient shocks would still have allowed the wheels to bounce to the limits easily as it had been doing before. The car feels like new. Even the steering that was pulling to the right is now stable with no pull to either side. When I get a chance I will get the wheel alignment re-checked. I am not in a hurry as the car is moving straight with no pull to any direction. I also noticed that with the new springs on the back the camber angle seems not to be as high offset as before (-1.9). That was a bit beyond the factory recommended adjustment range and it may have caused faster wear of the inner side of the rear tires, especially if not keeping the pressure around the recommended 32 PSI.
Next I will put new wheels (old ones are warped a bit and one of them may even have a crack due to the constant small air lick I have noticed.). It is hard to find the wheels with the specs I need (18x8 5x112 backspacing <6.1" (preferably around 5.9"), bore 66.6 mm.). Then I will fill the tires with nitrogen. Given the large temperature fluctuations between seasons and even days n the east coast that is the only way to keep the tire pressure stable.

gome1597

When replacing the struts is the Special socket really needed to remove strut from the spring?

C230 Mulac

Subscribing to this for future reference...looking at coilovers soon!

I think I'm just going to buy a new "hat" so I don't have to take the stock coilover apart, but I cannot find the damn part! I'm not expecting a response here but if anyone happens to see this please let me know.

TruTaing

Mulac - Keep us posted on your choice of coilovers and let us know what your installation experience is like!

The "hat" is technically referred to as the front strut bearings. A far more technically minded man created this thread with all of the information you need about the "hat":

https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w...placement.html

C230 Mulac

Bilstein PSS9, just waiting to recover a bit from the $$ I just spent on water pump, radiator hoses, control arm, bucnh of other stuff before I pull the trigger.

Thanks for the info. So basically the hat is what is also referred to as the "Strut Mount" on parts website? Looks like I would also need the hardware kit and special socket. Good to know.

C230 Mulac

The Bilsteins have arrived!! I'll be taking pics and posting up useful info when I install. Currently waiting on the adjustable sway bar links to arrive. Looks like install will be on the 24th of this month! Planning on either using my buddy's garage or the lift bays at Ft Meade.

bryananthony

How did the install go? I'm replacing mine this weekend. Any hiccups? Pics?

C230 Mulac

It went well! The front was pretty easy. I didn't need a spring compressor to take off the hats from the OEM coils since the C55 already has a lower stance so without load it's not under a lot of tension. I didn't need the compressor to put new hats on the new coils either. Adjustable sway bar end links are cake too when you have all that stuff apart.

The rear wasn't too bad either as far as the shock and spring. The camber arm was a little bit of a b**** since you have to unbolt the toe arm at the wheel carrier in order to get to the bolt for the camber arm, and it's tight quarters at the subframe where the camber arm attaches, but still not too bad.

It also helped a lot that I had a lift when we were doing the work. Biggest thing is for the front, you can't tighten the top nut on the strut until the suspension is loaded. You can just lower everything back down onto the wheels after you're done with all the other things and when it's sitting on the ground tighten those two nuts.

Same with the rear for the bolts/nuts at the wheel carrier, camber arms, etc. All of them need to be tightened with load on the car. If you have the car on jack stands, you can just place the jack under the rotor (with something between to protect the rotor) and just jack it up until it's pretty much loaded, just be careful not to entirely lift it off of the jack stands!

Pics are in my C55 thread: https://mbworld.org/forums/c32-amg-c...-report-2.html