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2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
First raise and then place the car on jackstands. Mine are modified to fit into the lifting points. Chock the front wheels. Then remove the back wheel for the strut using the 17mm facom if you have the flower looking lug bolts with the chrome jackets, or just a regular 17mm if you changed out your lug bolts for regular hex ones like I did. I have a thread on switching to the hex lig bolts. Id highly suggest doing it. They are from a late model ml350 but fit perfectly.
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
Next remove the brake caliper. First compressit a bit and then locate the two caliper bolts. Remove the dust caps and then loosen using #7 allen head socket. Its tight for clearance.
Now remove the anti rattle clip with a screwdriver. Remove the caliper now and hang it somewhere. Next remove the inner fender liner. There are 4 plastic 10mm nuts holding it on along with 2 plastic rivets
Removing the dust cap
#7 allen head socket
Compressing caliper
Removing anti rattle clip... also remove the brake pad sensor wire
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
Go into cars-> S class-> Control Units-> chassis-> suspension-> actuations
Pick the strut you want to evacuate. In my case it was the RR strut. Press the - button until all the air is out. Now after this do not start the car or air will enter the strut again. For good measure I also removed the relay to the compressor. You can find how to do that in my diy on removing the airmatic compressor. Now that the strut is evacuated you start dismantling the strut. I did the electrical connection first.
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
Almost evacuated
Next remove the electrical connector. Start at the strut ans start removing it from the harness. Then you will see a connection block. First remove the circlip from the connection block. Then remove the bottom 2 connectors. They are clipped together. The bottom red one is ABS wheel speed sensor top blue one the is the airmatic strut
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
Now go into the back of the car. Theres a panel that sits on the rear deck. It is held in place by a bunch of clips. Using a plastic wedge/pry tool remove the panel. This will expose speakers and two holes where the tops of the struts are located. There almost no room here!!!! I had to wedge my head in and remove some of the foam so i could get a good view of the top.
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
Access hole for strut.
There are 3 13mm nuts that hold the strut in on the top. 2 are accessiblr with a ratchet and the one is off the side and buried under there. For that one you need a box wrench and just angle it and loosen
First accesible bolt facing the back of the car
2nd accessible bolt facing the front of the car. Its alittle tight to get this one but not bad. Just remove the foam
This one is not accessible with a ratchet. This one requires a 13mm box wrench place it at an angle. Be careful not to strip it if it wont move.
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
Ok now time to remove the air fitting. Its pretty much possible to get it with a box wrench. I fought at it and no go. I didnt want to strip it so I made a modified 10mm deep socket. I cut a groove into it ao that the hose would not get int the way, like an O2 sensor socket. I carefully broke it loose witg maybe an 8th of a turn. I wanted to ne careful because the socket had sharp edges and i did not want to cut the plastic line. Then I removed it by hand
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
Set the line aside. Now go back out to the strut. Theres a lower bolt that holds the strut to the control arm. Theres a 21mm head and a 21mm nut. Loosen and remove. Next remove the bolt that holds the control arm to the wheel carrier. 21mm and e20 torx.
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
On mine the bolt that holds the wheel carrier to control arm would not come out. It took me forever to figure out that you have to remove one of the linkages. It is the first linkage to the front of the car. If you remove it it lets you pivot the assembly and the bolts comes free. If i had known that this would have gone alot quicker lol. To get the linkage off i ran into another problem... one side had a funny 12 point socket face and the other side was 18mm. So i had busted the 18mm side loose until it started turning the bolt and grabbed a pair of channel locks and held it in place and it came off with no problems.
Unfortunately i had to do it this way. Nothing i had would fit this. It was a weird 12point. Not even an allen head would fit.
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
Next pivot the assembly and remove the control arm to carrier bolt. Now remove the top nut off the sway bar link to make it easier to pull down the control arm. I believe this was a 13mm as well
Now pull down on the control arm. It will get caught up from the bottom of the sway bar link and another carrier linkage. You have to pivot the carrier back forth and pull down on the control arm at the same time. I did it myself so I had no extra arms for a pic. Sorry. The control arm will wiggle down and then be free to pry down
Then remove the old strut
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
Now for installation. Ok now insert the new strut. I struggled forever to get the top studs through the holes up top. Theres a notch in the strut that must point to the outside of the car. That goes into the point where it was not accessible. But once you find the spot and the strut goes up, only the two accesible studs will be through. Dont worry just get the new nuts started on these. Once you toghten them down they will suck the strut up into the tower and align the third stud. Again i had to use both hands i couldnt take pics. I tightened them snug. Now get the bottom of the strut into the control arm. Do not align it yet. Now try and get the control arm back up into the wheel carrier by wiggling the wheel carrier and the control arm will find its way up. Pivot the wheel carrier again to get the bolt back in. Align the swaybar link top. Now align the hole for the strut and insert the bolt for the strut to control arm. Easier said than done. It takes some elbow grease. Now reattach the wire for the stut to the plug. The strut is blue wheel sensor red
Now for the even funner part. After tightening everything time to reattach that linkage we removed. In order to tod that pry the linkage down and pull the carrier assembly up and insert bolt. Try jacking up on the carrier assembly alittle. And then pry the linkage down. You might have to finagle it to get them to align. The bolt wont go right in, you have to thread it. If you pound it in im not sure if that will ruin the threads in the shaft and throw alignment off. Do not fully tighten this yet, just put the nut on snug after you thread the bolt into the shaft. It needs to be fully tightened at ride height.
New strut installed
Ride height
Last edited by Nickthegreek; Jun 25, 2015 at 11:43 PM.
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
Ok now we go back up top. On the new strut theres a plastic. Plug in place of the air fitting. Remove it with your 10mm deep socket. On this plug there is a gasket. It is important to transfer this gasket to the air fitting. Remove the old gasket from the fitting and slide the new one on. I used a pick to get the new seal off the plug
Remove the black rubber seal on the fitting
On the new strut you remove that little black plastic plug with a 10mm socket. The bigger cap is left alone. Wait until the strut is installed in the car to remove the plug to avoid dirt falling in<br/>
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
Ok now get the fitting started on by hand. Not much room but doable. Bottom it out as tight as you can by hand. Then snug it on with the 10mm socket. It doesnt require alot of torque I did it by feel.
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
Reattach the brakes and then the wheel and lower the car to about a normal ride height. Go back into xentry and go back into the acutations. I had it put air into the strut. The pressure from before was 5 bar so i pressurized it back to 5. Then let the whole car off the jack. It sagged a bit but then I went into control unit adaptations and there is an automatic level function. I let it do its magic until the wheels were level.
then lift the car again and remove the wheel. Put a jack under the wheel carrier and jack it up until the body begins to raise off the jackstand. This is ride height. Now tighten the linkage nut. Ok now lower the car onto the jackstand and install the fender liner. Install wheel again and torque. Enjoy your new ride and the money you saved. Hoepfully the fronts will be easier than the rears. When all is said and done it will have costed 541 bucks to do this DIY. Also on youtube you see people doing it without xentry but i think it is an absolute requirement. I had all kinds of faults and warnings on my dash afterwards like EPS ABS from removing the cable. I would say this is for the more advanced DIYer who knows their way around Xentry. So far so good. Now im going to send back my old strut. Well see how the new one holds up
Last edited by Nickthegreek; Jun 24, 2015 at 11:55 AM.
2009 S550 AMG sport pckg. 2014 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrewcab
No problem guys. For some strange reason i love to torture myself doing this lol. In the middle of doing it I said to myslef "next time this happens screw ill just pay them" but looking back on it I had some unexpected obstacles that will not hold me back next time so I would totally do this again. If youre new to wrenching though do not try this yourself!! Lol Also update on the car it sits nice and level now even in the morning. I measured from top of fender to top of the rim and theres less than a 1/4 inch difference which is totally acceptable to me compared to 1 1/2 inches
Also another note... having the right amount of workspace is very important also. I wish I had a bigger garage. When i buy a house next year a large garage with a scissor lift will be on my bucket list !
Last edited by Nickthegreek; Jun 25, 2015 at 11:51 PM.
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