koskesh

Saw this on ebay. it is an internal spring compressor. Does anyone know if this will work? looks like the only thing that would keep it from working would be if those bulky heads don't fit through the hole in the control arm where the spring is held in place.

suicidal4life

Looking at it I'd guess no. Of course thats just a guess. When I did my springs I had a similar spring compressor I've used on previous (non MB) cars. I couldn't get it to work. I also had an external type compressor and it wouldn't work either. I ended up wrapping a cargo strap around the springs to keep them compressed and used a floor jack under the control arm to drop them out. Actually went pretty smoothly with the stock springs and even easier with the H&R springs which are much shorter.

This is obviously not the preferred way to do this swap and could be dangerous if you are not careful so proceed at your own risk if you decide to try this method. I've done several spring swaps in the past so I felt confident doing it this way.

michakaveli

Nope. Disaster waiting to happen. Search the threads... This has been addressed numerous times.

koskesh

Look what I found!!!
from: http://www.w124performance.com/images/tools/

ohlord

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...temnumber=3980
or above mentioned cargo straps and 2 jacks

koskesh

The answer is NO it will not work. I got the O'riely version and half way through compressing the spring, one of those claws gave and slipped off of the spring. I was lucky I had an external spring compressor mounted in case this happened and the spring was still inside the perch so nothing damaged.

The moral of the story is DO NOT use any spring compressor other than the one DESIGNED to do this. These springs pack huge amounts of energy when compressed and you are likely to loose a finger, eye or your life if you try to compress them with some cheap spring compressor. Especially since you have to compress the spring to almost full compression to get it out. I wouldn't even trust the knock offs they sell on ebay. Either buy or rent the original spring compressor, or have it done by a professional with the right tool, or drop the control arms. And at this point, despite the extra work I think I will not ever use a spring compressor on my car and take the control arm route if I ever need to get a spring out. Better to be safe than handycapped or dead, duh.

And here's the O'Reilly spring compressor that slipped on me. STAY AWAY from this junk.