Can someone tell me how to get the inner control arm bolt out without dropping the exhaust? If I pull the bolt straight out it hits the exhaust pipe and I can go no further without dropping it.
Side note, if I have to drop it, does anyone know how?
You can leave those plastic tabs there, you can just loosen the cross attachment at the diff from the exhaust, then two 10, or 13 mm bolts looking up the rear bumper near the tips, you can then have enough play in the exhaust to get the bolt out.
Thanks Jeff, I will give that a try tonight. Also, given how difficult you guys are saying it will be to adjust the height of the rears, maybe you can give me some indication on how I should set the rear perch:
Just to give you some indication of the stance I am looking for this is how I set the fronts for now:
I have removed the old control arm and have bolted the new one to the spindle, but I can not figure out how to get everything to line up. I am not sure if I skipped a step and forgot to remove something, but I can not create enough distance between the spindle and the subframe to install the new control arm. Is there an order of operations I am not getting? It seems the spindle is sitting a little "bottom in". I am sure I am missing something. Any ideas?
So the install today went great. I only had time to knock out the front. I will disassemble the rear tomorrow and if I have time install as much as I can.
So here goes:
First things first break your wheels loose in the front while the car is on the ground. Apply the emergency brake and chock the rear wheels. Then use the factory jack on the factory lift points to get her up in the air. Attachment 377119
Then use a good jack to lift the front of the car using the center lift pad under the nose of the car. Attachment 377120
*****OPTIONS HERE*******
1. You can either remove the compressor, by removing all the bolts below it.
2. Leave it all intact to return back to stock in the future.
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I removed this gawdy thing. I undid the 3 bolts below and out it came. and I unhooked the harness for it. and capped it off with electrical tape. I then snipped the lines going to the distribution block and capped them with vacuum plugs and left them as is: Attachment 377133
Removed the upper mount to the height level senosor and left sensor on the chassis till i removed the shock: Attachment 377134
Undo the clip in the engine bay leading from the AIRMATIC sensor to the top of the airshock. Undo the air line. (I cut mine and pulled the line all the way out of the engine bay by the left front wheel well). I removed the lower shock bolt and lifted the shock from the lower control arm. I then removed the upper three bolts from the top of the shock tower and the whole shock slid down and out. I also forgot to take pictures of this part, apologies on my behalf.
Reinstall the new coilover shock tighten the top hat bolts. It should sit flush up against the body: Attachment 377137
Adjust your coilovers to your choice of height according to the manufacturers installation instructions. Now install the fender liners and repeat on the other side.
After you are done install your wheels and set the car on the ground and enjoy your new steel suspension on the front of the car.
Stay tuned for the rear install! Which I guarantee you is going to be a lot more involved.
Hey buddy. What control arms do you use ? Part #? I have an 06 cls 55 amg and want to do bc coilovers. I believe these cars use same control arms in back for conversion. Thanks man
Does anyone know how to purge all the air out of the system to make the removal easier? All the threads I've been reading are people doing the conversion on a failed airmatic system with the shocks not under pressure. I just started the conversation and my system is full of air, I have followed step by step per peoples write ups but am running into issues immediately. My front lower control arm bolt is half way out but is now stuck and I dont want to kill the threads, so I then removed the sway bar end link bolt on the lower control arm and it's at an angle and dont want to come out. What am I missing besides removing everything or deflating the system? And help would be killer, thanks gents!
Does anyone know how to purge all the air out of the system to make the removal easier? All the threads I've been reading are people doing the conversion on a failed airmatic system with the shocks not under pressure. I just started the conversation and my system is full of air, I have followed step by step per peoples write ups but am running into issues immediately. My front lower control arm bolt is half way out but is now stuck and I dont want to kill the threads, so I then removed the sway bar end link bolt on the lower control arm and it's at an angle and dont want to come out. What am I missing besides removing everything or deflating the system? And help would be killer, thanks gents!
I knew I was not ever going to go back to air, so I just cut the plastic air lines at each wheel and there was no problem. (Of course, it's been a couple years and I wished I had never taken the air off . . . but that's another story.)
[QUOTE=AutoLuxury;5799393]I love my flippy floppyies!
Arnotts only has the fronts when I spoke to them and they did not have them in stock I would have to send mine in and have them rebuilt. I didn't wanna deal with a compressor going out, or a pump failing, or a rear bag failing in the future. So i just decided to get coils. Besides I like to drive the twisty roads of tennessee and the air ride is a little mushy lol. I paid less then $1000 for them. They retail for $1250. I paid another $150 from Car-part.com for the rear control arms. I bought them used from a salvage yard and cleaned them up and painted them to look good
