Caranas06

Idk how you fit under the car after taking it off the jack AND manage to torque 80nm(my torque wrench doesnt have enough leverage)... Is it ok to drive the car onto a pair of ramps while new control arms arent torqued yet?

Andre91

I would think ramps are OK, the idea behind torqueing the LCA bolts with the car on the ground is so that they're torqued with the suspension loaded. With the front end up on ramps the suspension won't be fully loaded as if the car were sitting level because the rear will take more of the weight, but it's definitely better than torqueing them with the suspension hanging loose.

You'll need an alignment anyways after replacing the lower control arms, if you can't get the bolts torqued with the suspension loaded you could have the alignment shop break the bolts loose and re-torque them while the car is up on the alignment rack.

Caranas06

Yeah totally looks like thats what im going to have to do. By the way, does it matter which side is torqued up? I.e. bolt or nut? Im finding that when lca is under load, the bolt is fixed in position(I suspect this is due to the slots on the bolt being locked by the bumps in the LCA bore). The nut feels alright on the thread but it seems way harder to fit a socket on for my T wrench but not impossible.

Andre91

Don't think it matters in this case? Whether you apply torque to the bolt or nut only starts to matter when the nut and bolt head are different sizes, or the bolt is very long. I don't have access to WIS, though, so I'm not sure if Mercedes has a specific instruction.

bbirdwell

Torque the nut. If the bolt rotates it can break off the "ears" inside the forward thrust arms.
I agree it is a PITA to get a socket and torque wrench on that nut. I was wishing the MB engineers had provided an extra 1/4" of room there.