ajalonzo

To all that have a leaking suspension! The right side of my car was leaning for the past 2 years, and just yesterday I had an idea. Try some gorilla glue! Well while I was at home I applied to glue to the small cracks in the top of the strut, let it dry. Well let's just say my car is no longer leaning to the right. The gorilla glue was about 5 dollars.

S600Keith

Pretty sweet and simple fix. Time will tell how long it lasts. Good tip though.

ajalonzo

Thanks! I will let everyone know if it starts to fail, basically how long it last......

mj9rm9

airmatic superglue fix
I was almost convinced i had to replace both struts on my w220 s500 because everytime i went over a series of speed bumps or took a hard corner - i'd get the airmatic visit workshop[ warning followed later by "Stop car too low".

I usually tuned the engine off and restarted sometimes twice and the pump would kick in and we'd be off again.

We had alook at the top of the struts were the airline is connected and obbserved fine craks (which we initially thought were paint cracks. on closer inspection they turned out to be more than that. A former racing driver friend of mine (who sold me the car) syggested the superglue fix they used to use for odd problems. All we did was coat the top of the cracks withe the superglue and gently tested the car a day later with promising results. My mechanic put a thick coating of some resin over the top and after it cured raised the car of the ground with the hoist and lowered it back to the ground. Previously when we did this - all the air would escape from the struts and the tyres would almost touch the guard. Once started the pump would kick in and the car would be driveable. Anyway this time - hooray - this didn't happen and furthermore when i took it over the route that always caused the airmatic to fail - it passed beatifully. Also the pump was nowhere near as busy as it used to be.

Boy am I happy - the $4 superglue saved over $4000 - now all I have to do is find a replacement for my rhs mirror assembly because some of the led's have stopped working.

I post this because to thank the forum for showing me i was not alone.

Many thanks again and to the the "3ml tube of selleys quick fix supa glue"

Richard
Funkies Restaurant
Toorak Vic Australia

Quadcammer

how the hell do you run around for 2 years with a leaking strut?

tusabes

the epoxy/superglue fix is well known

to test this,
spray the tops of your struts where the airmatic lines are coming out with soapy water when you first start the car...if you see bubbles forming you have cracks in the epoxy and should try the glue fix.

Sunnz

I have a leak too on front passenger airmatic.
My car leaning on the side when it is parked but once i start it i can see it lift up a bit.
i will try the glue this week.
i ll keep you posted.

tusabes

bamberger_1

xOwNx

I cleand the top of the strut with alcohol and filled in the small cracks with super and baking soda 2 years agi. till this day still holding strong not 1 time did i re apply

v8_ranch

What was/is the purpose of the baking soda?

Astro14

The super glue won't fill gaps. It only works when the gap is very small. Baking soda provides structure in which the glue dries, making a gap-filling combination.

Kind of like glass fiber in plastic resin...

wallyp

Super-glue combined with baking soda makes a pretty strong solid.

MBNUT1

You guys are demon!

Steve Mott

Are you guys talking about the front bags only cause I have the back end 1/2 of ground?

wallyp

Yes - the air leaks in the top of the struts are on the front struts. Rear strut leaks are almost invariably in the rubber/fabric rolling diaphragm.

Jorge Valle

I’m hoping someone will tell me that you can do that for my 2006 cls 500 type of airmatic shock i have the car too low signal On my cluster and my mechanics Cpu won’t reset it just keeps going back with same code. The car doesn’t drop much but I guess it’s enough that it activates the dash light. Is my only option really to buy new Airmatic shocks. I hope there’s some way to repair what I already have. After reading the threads here I’m going to try this method even though the top of my shocks don’t look like the ones you guys have

wallyp

My first approach would be to see if the car is actually too low. For a quick'n dirty check, see how many fingers will fit between the top of the tire and the fender lip. How much does that vary? A too-low warning usually means that the car is visibly low...

Playing parts-darts on a W220 will get really expensive really quickly, and can be unbelievably wasteful. You really need a mechanic who actually has the tools that are required (i.e., DAS) to maintain and repair a Mercedes. DAS will tell you exactly what needs repair or replacement. The odds are very, very good that you don't need to start replacing multiple struts...

michellebenz

I was on another forum recently .. and read two different posts .. where one used Flex Seal tape & the other used flex seal spray ... they both pulled the strut .. cleaned it very well .. treated the rubber on the outside only ( of course)
then they let it cure for a couple of days before placing back on their cars .. and one guy gave an update 3 months later and said it was still holding .., the guy with the spray .. applied 4 layers .. allowing each layer to dry before applying the next layer .....

I had dropped Flex seal and air strut in a Google search engine and was amazed to see how many ppl have done it!!

both had dry rot cracks in the rubber !! And they filled the dry rotted areas using the flex seal... one guy couldn’t get over how NEW THE RUBBER on the strut looked after he sprayed it !!!