MistaJ504

My first post to document my Ceika coilover conversion and some simple solutions to different issues. I purchased my coilovers with daily driving in mind and not so much for "stance" or trying to turn this 4600# car into a track car or whatever one may call it.
Specs were dual springs with 14k front and 10k rear and single dampening adjustments. The company was good to deal with and I specified my need for coilovers for an airmatic suspension since I was unsure if there was a difference. I did this to allow for the installation of swaybars from an airmatic suspension. I don't recall the specific wait time but I'm guessing 3-4 weeks to receive them at a cost of $1,140 I believe.
In the meantime I sourced the swaybars, endlinks and swaybar mounts from an S430 at a Pullapart local to me and lucked out there. Total with the AC compressor I needed for my failed compressor was $100. New lower control arms for an airmatic suspension were also purchased since I didn't want to risk worn bushings and opted for extra peace of mind.
Installing wasn't too difficult just time consuming. I did it all in my driveway over a weekend. 12 point 3/8 and 5/16 sockets fit perfectly on most of the reverse torx bolts. Remove the upper radiator hard pipe with hose and the electric fan to gain access to the tandem pump and make sure to protect the fan speed regulator from water . My cooling circuit hose drained into it with the electrical connector unplugged and required me to replace the fan and motor due to this oversight on my part.
Remove the ABC/PS resorvoir to provide more access to the tandem pump. The high pressure/discharge line on the bottom can be a PIA to loosen with pump still bolted up so I remove the bolts first to angle it better to get the box wrench in there. Basically this info can be found in a pump replacement thread. I believe this takes a 17mm wrench. Pump removal is necessary to modify it as I did or use spacers etc to install a regular PS pump. Some people recirculate the fluid through the cooler and back to the resorvoir but my 2nd pump was already damaged and whining. 1st pump was ruined when I bought the car by P/O who ran it dry and I installed this 2nd remanufactured pump which I chose to modify for my conversion. More on that later.

MistaJ504

Once the pump was out I moved on to the front swaybar and coilover install. I jacked up the car, inserted stands in the proper body position, removed the wheels and swapped the lower control arms while removing the struts for the last time. What a feeling of celebration, haha. Leave the lower control arm to subframe bolts loose until proper ride height is found to avoid binding and destroying the bushings prematurely, do not put the final torque on these bolts until the suspension has been fully compressed and make sure that the control arms face/sided correctly to bolt up to the swaybar. I removed as many of the ABC hoses and tubing as I was able to access without getting under the engine. The swaybar bolts up to mounts that are used for tubing brackets so these have to come out. The front swaybar bolts up under the front subframe. I used a stepped drill bit to drill the smaller grommet style tapped rivets out and allow for the larger bolt/nut to be used for the swaybar to subframe mounts. Some have used smaller bolts that match the threaded inserts but I opted for the original bolts requiring the inserts to be drilled out. It added about 10 minutes to drill these out and no big deal for me. The nuts have to be dropped in from the top and I used a large allen wrench to angle in from the top to hold the nut in place when bolting up the swaybar to the mount . I zip tied the sway bar to the subframe since I only have 2 hands and no helper at the time. Leave the endlinks disconnected until preferred coilover height is found since adjustment to one side can cause binding on the other side. I believe the ratio is about 2 to 1 for height adjustment give or take. One inch of collar adjustment is about 2 inches of height adjustment for the fronts. I couldn't say for the rears because I got lucky and never adjusted height in the rear after the 2nd time I raised the vehicle to adjust them out.

MistaJ504

Now we move to the rear, which seems intimidating given the need to lower the rear subframe but it went fairly smooth for me. The vehicle is still raised with stands at all 4 body points and the wheels are removed. Pay attention to ABS wires and where they mount to the frame and remove these. I left my wires attached after brackets were unbolted to allow for extra length when the rear is lowered. Lubricate the exhaust hangers and pop them out, the 2 hangers per side closest to the rear of the vehicle, there is no need to unbolt the exhaust, just gently lower the exhaust. Some spray oils break down rubber so keep that in mind.
I supported the rear differential with my floor jack and removed the 4 subframe bolts, a 14mm socket I believe. Remove the bottom bolts for both of the rear struts and gently begin to lower the whole assembly as one piece. Be careful you don't stress the hoses for the brakes when you do this. When lowering pay attention to the level indicators and you may wish to disconnect them from the rear assembly to avoid any damage. It is possible they affect traction control so I made sure mine were not damaged during this step. I now removed the rear struts with the extra space to slide them out.
The rear sway bar is fed through once the rear is lowered and with the angles it may be frustrating but with some patience I fed it through even with the end links still attached. Once the bar is through you can install the coilovers and raise the subframe back into position. The mounting points are already there on the subframe along with the mounting points to the lower control arms.

tusabes

How is the ride quality

MistaJ504

The rear coilover height seemed extreme to me once I realized where the rear height was at when everything was buttoned back up and the rear bottomed out. I jacked it all back up and started my height adjustment for the rear. I will add my measurements collar to collar with ride height photos at a later time since I don't remember off the top of my head, but I ended up using about a 4' section of 2x4 to pry down on the rear suspension to keep adjusting the coilovers longer. The lower coilover mount has to be unbolted to turn and get initial length adjustments.

MistaJ504

Now back to the pump. All 4 corners were adjusted more or less to initial ride height but again, I will add measurements to avoid headaches if anyone else chooses a similar setup to mine. The V12 engine uses the tandem pump which is longer than the standard PS pump from a V8 vehicle and has a 7 groove pulley as opposed to the 6 groove on the v8. I did grab the V8 pump from the S430 but did not use it after seeing the difference in length and opting to not use spacers or recirculation for my original pump. I chose to modify my tandem pump internally.
I removed the pulley and began to remove the individual pistons found underneath the cover. Remember how I said it was "remanufactured"? The allen head plugs were already damaged from their assembly so 2 were were stuck, but easily bypassed by unbolting the front assembly with the long bolts holding the assembly together and I removed the pistons and springs this way. There is a write up on here I believe on rebuilding the tandem pump so refer to that for help, but it is fairly simple once you have it in hand. The shaft has an offset cam on it that rotates and moves the pistons up and down to build pressure, aka rotary piston pump. I also removed this cam from the shaft. There are 2 sleeve bearings that require lubrication with a feed hole. There was a small plug on the bottom side of the bearing area that I drilled out to allow lubrication all around. The shaft was already heated and scored slightly and the sleeve bearings showed wear/damage from just a short time of running dry when a hose burst. I chose to clean up the bearing surface with Emery cloth and polished the shaft surface to reuse it since it will no longer be a pump, only an extended shaft for the PS side of the pump and there have been absolutely no issues so far. When these pumps go bad it is because the sleeve bearings are not lubricated and the piston surfaces are also damaged. Once modified I had to make sure the large o-rings under the cover were in good condition and put it all back together. You may choose to put new o-rings and shaft seal in at this point for peace of mind and avoid any leaks, but again, I reused mine since it will no longer see any pressure. The bottom of the pump now has a hole where the discharge was at. A 16x1.5 threaded oil plug with seal will work here. My pump was reinstalled and I used 3/4" hose and a 90° elbow with a piece of clear tubing facing straight up. I now filled the pump with an oil bath for the bearings but keep in mind that the inlet is a very small path and the air has to be displaced from inside to add oil, so wiggle the tube to allow the air to escape. Eventually it will fill and the clear tubing allowed me to keep adding until it finally stopped taking oil. There is a vented bolt in the top of the clear tubing to allow the air to escape and keep trash out. I did consider using a tee and aftermarket PS resorvoir for both sides of the pump but wanted to try the cheap and easy clear tubing since I wasnt sure of the outcome modifying the pump as I did. Before the pump had a very slight whine, possibly a bad "remanufactured" rebuild, but there is absolutely no noise now so I am happy with this solution and don't expect any failure from it as long as the sleeve bearings are now in the "oil bath". They don't require pressure, only lubrication.

MistaJ504

My next concern was the red abc fault. I've seen write ups on coding and strutmasters boxes and all sorts of different things. I opened the firewall fuse panel located on the driver side of the vehicle. There sits the abc control box. If you have read elsewhere they unplug a connector and only recieved a white warning that can be cleared. I disconnected the entire box and have absolutely no abc warning whatsoever, so perhaps I am just lucky like that...haha.

MistaJ504

Back to something I could have mentioned earlier. The lower control arms I used were for the airmatic suspension. I also had the notched bolts to adjust for camber. My adjustment allows the car to sit lower than stock, not crazy low but the fenders sit about 1/2" above the top of the tires. The notched bolts should be sourced because it affects camber. There are 3 positions to install. The notches are offset so pay attention since once installed in anything other than center position you cannot turn the bolt or it will tear them up. I installed my control arms as far inboard as I could to avoid any crazy camber.

MistaJ504

Now to the ride performance. I absolutely love it. It is not as "plush" as the ABC when it functioned properly but it honestly never did for me. I bought the car with 85k miles about 2 years ago and fought the suspension issues the entire way. The pump was shot which I immediately replaced and flushed and all of that and the Arnott rebuilt strut that was installed right before I bought the car was already lightly leaking which required a constant monitoring and supply of fluid. Valve blocks malfunctioning that I rebuilt, and it sucked to drive with the stoplight bounce where it would imperceptibly lower but bounce to ride height when I removed my foot from the brake pedal. I suspect the rebuilt pump didn't function from the start and pressures were not where they were supposed to be, but I am off on a tangent.
As mentioned I installed the swaybars and the tires will lose traction before I feel any body roll. There is no wallowing over dips and the car feels extremely "sure footed" for a 4600# sedan. Coilovers allow 30 clicks of adjustment and I have settled on 15-20 clicks towards the firmest setting and it is still extremely comfortable to ride in over the roughest sections of roads I travel. I did not adjust the preloaded spring settings and only the ride height. I have plenty of suspension travel even with it lower than factory and would have to launch it over the railroad tracks to bottom out.
I believe the ride quality is awesome and feels more controlled and I am more in touch with what the vehicle is doing when going through curves etc. Like I say, body roll is a non issue and I am a big fan of the Ceika coilovers. I cannot compare them to any other brands but I only have one regret and that is that I wasted money trying to keep the ABC functioning rather than just going straight to these coilovers and saving money in the long run.
I am an industrial mechanic by trade and don't mind working on any of my own vehicles and am pretty handy but I prefer driving them...haha. This car is once again a joy to drive and offers the package i was hoping for with my initial purchase of it.

MistaJ504

I hope that this will help others in the future and I will attempt to answer any questions directed my way. As mentioned I will be adding some pics when I have the opportunity and can find the proper format to submit them.

joseluu

Thanks a lot. One of those VERY USEFUL threads. It helps even if you don’t go the conversion path.

MistaJ504

My daytime photo will not upload for some reason so I'll take another over the weekend to show how the car sits, so here is this photo for now.

MistaJ504

This is the plug that i drilled out to allow oil to pass through the sleeve bearing. There is also an open port already at the top. I have 2 pumps at my disposal so I plan to modify the other as well since the internals were in better condition. I figured if it did not function correctly at least I was only going to ruin the pump that was already damaged more severely.
I also used a burr bit to notch that area since originally this was sealed from the low pressure area.

MistaJ504

Another reason I decided to try modifications to the pump was that the power steering has hard tubing going into the pump and with space constraints it could end up being a PIA to modify this tubing to work with a V8 PS only pump.

MistaJ504

This is a poor photo, but it shows the location of the other plug that i drilled out at the bottom of the inner sleeve bearing to allow an oil path all the way through. I believe originally the bearings are lubricated with low pressure oil and the plug is there to separate bearings from the higher pressure side of the pump. I wanted fresh oil to access both sides and not be stopped in one area.

MistaJ504

Something else to keep in mind concerning the tandem pump that applies to replacing, rebuilding, or modifying. The pulley is bolted to a hub and this hub is a compression fit that is not keyed or held on with anything other than the slightly undersized hub to shaft machined fit. This has to be tight so it doesn't slip and is nearly impossible to remove without some thought and a press. Pullers will likely damage it and ruin the puller in the process and high heat will damage seals and o-rings etc and possibly the pump itself. I'm not saying it cannot be done but a press is the best IMO. When installing the hub you have to heat it up and again this can damage things. Most people do not have access to a "bearing heater" but this is the best way to reinstall the hub. Torches etc. can damage the threads and overheat the part and if not heated uniformly it will not go on as far as needed, and too much heat placed near the shaft seal will ruin it. I work with this stuff daily and still had 2 tries to get it fully seated on the shaft using the bearing heater. Hammers are a bad idea because you are putting all that force into the shaft and pump as well. My 2nd try I cranked the bearing heater up to 300° F just to be sure and icing the shaft just before install may help. Installing bearings usually only requires 250° F if the shaft is sized correctly. Most machine shops probably have a bench top bearing heater so make some friends with one because some things just cannot be accomplished with a drill or hammer....haha.

MistaJ504

PrometheusFD3S

This is awesome, I appreciate the documentation.

I have a 2006 S65 AMG, with ABC, so I think this will be very close to the procedure for my conversion.

maw1124

so total time and cost from beginning to end?

maw