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Also I'm not sure I completely understood the rubber trick, so you remove the upper rubber bushing and place the rubber bushing on the top of the strut, under the factory rubber bushing?
In the second picture above, the bush is pulled off the top of the strut. You can see the female cone shape of the primary bush (facing upwards) that mates with the male cone shape of the top of the strut. The primary bush just sits there, sandwiched between the top of the strut and the underside of the wheel-arch mounting.
It's held in place by the weight of the car, but when the weight is off the wheels, the strut is stopped from dropping down by the much smaller secondary bush. That screws onto the top of the strut stem, and keeps the primary bush in compression at all times, no-matter what the suspension is doing.
I believe the primary bush is critical to W220 ride and handling, and one of the reasons the chassis works well (new) is because that bush is soft, and works in conjunction with the spring/damper to filter different frequencies and amplitudes of bumps and noise.
However, over the years, that big, soft primary bush settles, and becomes permanently compressed. That means the primary and secondary bushes go slack when the weight is off the wheels, and the wheel is free to move up and down a few mm, completely uncontrolled by the suspension.
That also appears to happen with bumps of a certain amplitude and frequency, typically small, short bumps taken at speed. The wheel and un-sprung suspension mass then bounce up and down against the compliance of the tire, un-damped by the suspension. That's why the ride goes to pot in certain circumstances.
The ideal solution is to replace the primary bush, but I've never found these available from MB or any after-market makers. Shame. So my work-around is to add a spacer to the secondary top bush, that takes up the slack, and keeps the lower primary bush in compression at all times. You can call it a kludge, but it does seem to work well.
The first time I tried this, I removed the original bush and fabricated a new, thicker bush. There's no need for such effort though. Just buy a rubber washer for a few pennies and fit that below the secondary bush. It will sit between the bottom of the secondary bush, and the top of the wheel-arch mounting.
I plan on going all out with the S65, she needs a lot of love. Just so happens that's S55 blew a abc line last week so orders a full coilover swap and airmatic sway bars and lower control arms to swap it to a conventional setup. I order yellow speed coilovers , I was plan on selling all the ABC **** but its all new all 4 struts and all 4 accumulators I replaced in the past year so she getting total refreshing. I am absolutely elated about the S65. The motor mounts feel good but with recent memory of dropping the sub frame on the S600 I figure I might aswell do the same and replace divertor valves, motor mounts and sleeve all the abc lines.
I didn't make that too clear. my tuned S600 feels faster than the S65. I am only seeing 19xx hPa when data logging on my S65. My understand was the S65 would spike to 22psi and hold above 17psi till redline. I am thinking it is the boost solenoid.
@Nick.. Do you recommend, driving the car with out Under covers to let heat evacuate easier?
Just so happens that's S55 blew a abc line last week so orders a full coilover swap and airmatic sway bars and lower control arms to swap it to a conventional setup. I order yellow speed coilovers
If you're doing the conversion, do you plan on sharing the journey with us? Others who plan on converting their ABC system if it fails, like me, would find it HIGHLY useful to know the steps of the process (since there's more to it than just replacing the shocks like adding sway bars, lower control arms, normal power steering pump, etc.)
i actually do plan on sharing. I plan on doing a proper swap with sway bars retrofitted front and rear( you have to drop rear sub frame). I'm actually going to just let the abc pump run dry. I am swapping all the components of the abc to the S65. I already have all the parts for retro fitting front sway bars on to the S55. I plan on doing the rear sway bar, shortly after, since it is so much more of an involved job. I'm going to replace every component in the rear while the sub frame is off. The car should be a pretty aggressive sports car. Basically a 1 trick dog. I'll the leave the ABC working on my other two w220. I plan on dailying the S55 with the conventional suspension. Well a mix of the S55 and my w140 S600 with ADS delete.
I wish I had the enthusiasm you do for working on a V12 mercedes lol. Since I don't have as much of that as you do, I don't think I'll be adding rear sway bars because it is a LOT more work to do when I'm doing the conversion. Is installing only the front sway bar without the rear sway bar adequate? I would imagine so since that's where the steering is and the front of the car is where the most weight is. Also, how would the power steering situation work? Just get a normal p/s pump from a non-abc car and re-route the p/s steering portion of the tandem pump hoses to the normal p/s pump while tying off the lines for the suspension stuff near the pump? I do plan keeping all the suspension components in tact after the conversion (abc lines, hoses, valve blocks, accumulators, etc.) just to keep things as simple as possible (also I could go back to abc this way incase for whatever reason in the world I would want to, although highly unlikely)
The simplest approach on the conversion is taking everything out. And letting the abc side run dry. It will have no affect on the power steering. A great example of that is the 3 hours I drove home after I blew my line in the S55. Actually the car felt a bit smoother. Like it had less drag, that was probably in my head. Pertaining to the Sway bars in the rears. Some people say the car is decent with no sways, after the coil over swap. The few hours I drove with no ABC really wasn't as bad as I though it was going to be. So I think a front sway bar will def. tighten the car up but it might make it susceptible to a snap oversteer or something ( not sure of proper terms) I'm waiting on the coil-overs to arrive, I already have all the parts.
MB lower control arms ( airmatic S500 )
2203232565 - $229.00 Sway Bar front
2203230040 - $22.00 X2 Brakets
2203201589 - $79.00 X2 Sway Bar links
000912014086 - $6.75 X4 Screw link to bar
2209900151 - $2.40 x6 NUTS #35 #40
00912010218 - screw NLA
910113010000 - hex nut NLA
2203201711 - $179.20 rear sway bar
0019906812 - $3.50 bolt screw x4
1403521376 - $1.70 Washers x10
2203203689 - $29.50 Rear Link x2
I should be driving the car around for a few weeks with just the front sways. So I will report back. I am actually looking forward to the simplicity that the S55 Kompressor will have with no ABC and coil overs. I am committed to Keeping the ABC tip-top in my S65 as long as I own it and wife S600 for a few years atleast. Wifey wants a black S600 now since she saw the black S65 so I might be selling the S600 I just bought and did motor mounts,divertor valves, voltage convertor, Upper A arms, Thrust and control Arms, rotors and pads all the way around. 20 quart tranny flush ( first 10 quarts Valvoline max life) Flex disc and center support AND Eurocharged Tune. I will probably be hard pressed to more than 13k for it. Will dyno the S600 tomorrow!
I read this somewhere else but before anyone chimes in on why this doesn't make sense or its a waste of money.
Alex I recommend You pull all the crap off when you do the swap and sell it. There is no turning back, lets be honest. My Indie was going to buy all the parts off me to throw on the shelf until I got a S65.
Referring to the covers, I mean the covers below the motor. The skid-plates
Lol, my 97 has 350k Miles on it with original trans and motor. Runs beautiful have put 9k miles on it in past 4 months no issues. I truly enjoy the way a V12 applies torque it is such a unique driving experience that even my "Beater" has a V12. Going to try and Dyno my S600 biTurbo today since I just got the Tune and De-Catted.
Referring to the covers, I mean the covers below the motor. The skid-plates
I wouldn't touch those. The under-hood airflow is very carefully managed indeed, and I wouldn't upset anything down there. When you take the radiator and sub-frame out, you get see just how much work MB have done.
I agree, Nick. I just dropped the sub-frame on the S600. I honestly just want to solve this hot restart state Mis-fire issue. I order those valves from amazon. I just received the 010 pump so I will swap that on now to the S600. My dyno time will be tomorrow at 1pm so I will have results, tomorrow. I will do first run with a stock tune, then swap the tune back on to see increase. Probably going to take the S65 along to just get a baseline on her.
I didn't know the power steering portion of the tandem pump could work on its own if the abc portion goes out. The bearing on the pulley of mine is starting to make a lot of noise, so whenever I do the conversion I'll just swap it out for a normal non-abc pump since it would be dumb paying 4 times more money to get the same result with the tandem pump.
The misfire issue you're having could be a MAP sensor, or a bad gap between the spark plug and coil pack, or even just a bad connection. Misfires on these cars could really be anything, making it very complicated, but if its only misfiring on a hot restart it may be a sensor or bad connection.
So I finally found the culprit. After extensive research I found a bulletin pertaining to the cl600 with misfires on front cylinders when hot. I found a logical explanation, ethanol blended fuel. Ethanol boils around 170F the extra pressure from the boiled ethanol starve the fuel on the farthest cylinders on hot restart. The fix is higher pressure which all the later M275 engined cars have. I'm not sure when they switched from a 4 bar to a 5 bar control unit but my car has a 4 bar(2003 S600). So orderd the 5 bar and fuel filter and pump. Will report back!!!
Very interesting, I assumed it was fuel boiling at one point but leaving the key on without starting never seemed to help me. I was gonna put a gauge on it at some point to check though.
Mercedes SLR McLaren 722 S Is Extremely Rare Example Modified by McLaren
Slideshow: A one-of-one U.S.-spec Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Roadster became even rarer after a factory-backed transformation at McLaren's headquarters.
I read this somewhere else but before anyone chimes in on why this doesn't make sense or its a waste of money. 
