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Any thoughts on how these two look? Car pulls slightly even after dealer alignment, but I don't think these are the culprit. One does seem to have the plastic protrusion out of the bushing while the other is absent.
Passenger, plastic slightly outside of metal jacket
14 E63, 05 E55, 03 Evo 8, 08 F250, 06 R6R, 92 Talon TSI, and instability
Originally Posted by NoVAe63s
Any thoughts on how these two look? Car pulls slightly even after dealer alignment, but I don't think these are the culprit. One does seem to have the plastic protrusion out of the bushing while the other is absent. Passenger, plastic slightly outside of metal jacket Driver, no protrusion
Looking at your pics, both have protrusion. The driver's looks uneven like it's flexing. The passenger side is typically what we're seeing on the driver's side.
Thanks - dealer has it now. Grabbed the tech, took him for a test drive and showed him the pics. He replied "well uneven tire wear can pull a car significantly too..."
More of the seam corrosion difference between the 2.
hey thanks for sharing these pics and info on this bloody repeated left control arm situation... I have the Mevotech and gonna try to put it in tomorrow.
quick question - what torque spec did you use when you tightened both the bolts on the ball joint and other end of the control arm? 80NM? cant seem to find that anywhere. thx in advance
2014 AMG E63 S212 | 2018 Alfa Romeo Giulia Ti Sport Q4
I am going to be brutally honest to you. As one guy who bought a high mileage Awsome euro trash ****box that I love. I just cranked it. They sell replacement bolts. Buy them. It’s a keyed bolt and if your car ever has seen north of the Mason Dixon line you’re going to need some ungas and dungas to get it off.
I strongly recommend a support Jack if you’re on a lift. I was on a lift built for land rovers and she still swayed alot more than I was comfortable with so we threw a jack on. Put a pad on it and use the pumpkin.
Get a punch and various mallets. You will want dead blow and solid. 3lb is fine. 5s enough.
I cannot tell you how happy I am this part has held up. I just rolled 120,000.
14 E63, 05 E55, 03 Evo 8, 08 F250, 06 R6R, 92 Talon TSI, and instability
Originally Posted by jvakos
hey thanks for sharing these pics and info on this bloody repeated left control arm situation... I have the Mevotech and gonna try to put it in tomorrow.
quick question - what torque spec did you use when you tightened both the bolts on the ball joint and other end of the control arm? 80NM? cant seem to find that anywhere. thx in advance
I'll have to check the WIS later, but all I did as the bad man that I am is hit it with a few "uggah duggas" and called it a day. 80nm sounds close to right, but you could probably go a bit higher.
Although, we do have a thread dedicated to WIS lookups here where you can get that answer faster.
https://mbworld.org/forums/w212-amg/759604-e63-s-4matic-m157-factory-wis-maintenance-repair-documents.html
I am going to be brutally honest to you. As one guy who bought a high mileage Awsome euro trash ****box that I love. I just cranked it. They sell replacement bolts. Buy them. It’s a keyed bolt and if your car ever has seen north of the Mason Dixon line you’re going to need some ungas and dungas to get it off.
I strongly recommend a support Jack if you’re on a lift. I was on a lift built for land rovers and she still swayed alot more than I was comfortable with so we threw a jack on. Put a pad on it and use the pumpkin.
Get a punch and various mallets. You will want dead blow and solid. 3lb is fine. 5s enough.
I cannot tell you how happy I am this part has held up. I just rolled 120,000.
@Krakenjack super helpful thanks for the tips and tricks here. So you have that Mevotech control arm and at 120k miles its still good? very encouraging!
I'll have to check the WIS later, but all I did as the bad man that I am is hit it with a few "uggah duggas" and called it a day. 80nm sounds close to right, but you could probably go a bit higher.
I am going to be brutally honest to you. As one guy who bought a high mileage Awsome euro trash ****box that I love. I just cranked it. They sell replacement bolts. Buy them. It’s a keyed bolt and if your car ever has seen north of the Mason Dixon line you’re going to need some ungas and dungas to get it off.
I strongly recommend a support Jack if you’re on a lift. I was on a lift built for land rovers and she still swayed alot more than I was comfortable with so we threw a jack on. Put a pad on it and use the pumpkin.
Get a punch and various mallets. You will want dead blow and solid. 3lb is fine. 5s enough.
I cannot tell you how happy I am this part has held up. I just rolled 120,000.
@Krakenjack brother your not kidding about that inner cross strut bolt it is a ***** to loosen. I've been murdering it with my mallet and wrench and its moved about 2 full turns only. I need a bigger mallet mine is only a 2 pounder.
i'm soaking it now with PB blaster and gonna give it another go tomorrow AM. Definitely a ***** doing this from under the car on Rhino Ramps and jack stands as I cannot get my 4 foot breaker bar in there which would likely do the job to bust loose the bolt.
I am going to be brutally honest to you. As one guy who bought a high mileage Awsome euro trash ****box that I love. I just cranked it. They sell replacement bolts. Buy them. It’s a keyed bolt and if your car ever has seen north of the Mason Dixon line you’re going to need some ungas and dungas to get it off.
I strongly recommend a support Jack if you’re on a lift. I was on a lift built for land rovers and she still swayed alot more than I was comfortable with so we threw a jack on. Put a pad on it and use the pumpkin.
Get a punch and various mallets. You will want dead blow and solid. 3lb is fine. 5s enough.
I cannot tell you how happy I am this part has held up. I just rolled 120,000.
So I got the old driver side cross strut off and the ball joint was easy about 5 mins with the wrench and then ball joint separator BUT that inner bolt was a PITA as you said! Took 30 mins of pounding on my wrench with a mallet and it turned 1/4 inch at a time and finally loosened.
The old cross strut looked like crap here’s a few photos of the old and new Mecotech part. It looks nearly identical to the MB one but I do notice the ball joint side is at a slight angle compared to the MB OEM one and Mevotech cross strut
So I got the old driver side cross strut off and the ball joint was easy about 5 mins with the wrench and then ball joint separator BUT that inner bolt was a PITA as you said! Took 30 mins of pounding on my wrench with a mallet and it turned 1/4 inch at a time and finally loosened.
The old cross strut looked like crap here’s a few photos of the old and new Mecotech part. It looks nearly identical to the MB one but I do notice the ball joint side is at a slight angle compared to the MB OEM one and Mevotech cross strut
got the Mecotech part in which takes some fiddling to get the inner bolt lined up into the keyed opening on the “integral carrier” that the bolt goes through. my bolt must not be the original since the bolt wasn’t keyed so it was trickier to fit it into that keyed opening. Was able to torque it to the MB spec 120nm. And did the ball joint nut tightened to 50nm.
time consuming if youre doing this from jacks under the car, but definitely not complicated to do.
hope this mevotech part lasts longer than the 10k miles ive gotten out of the driver side OEM cross strut!
@NoVAe63s@kennyd@WANTED!! hey guys - quick question, when you replaced your driver front control arms did you have to get your car re-aligned?
i put in that mevotch part and its working fine, but I must have not had my steering wheel straight when I bolted it down as my car is now slightly pulling to the left.
Assume I should be able to loosen the ball joint bolt and/or inner bolt to adjust and get the alignment back to normal? The alignment was 100% straight prior to my replacing the old control arm with the slipped bushing. THX!!
14 E63, 05 E55, 03 Evo 8, 08 F250, 06 R6R, 92 Talon TSI, and instability
Originally Posted by jvakos
@NoVAe63s@kennyd@WANTED!! hey guys - quick question, when you replaced your driver front control arms did you have to get your car re-aligned?
i put in that mevotch part and its working fine, but I must have not had my steering wheel straight when I bolted it down as my car is now slightly pulling to the left.
Assume I should be able to loosen the ball joint bolt and/or inner bolt to adjust and get the alignment back to normal? The alignment was 100% straight prior to my replacing the old control arm with the slipped bushing. THX!!
The correct answer is you should throw it on a rack and check when you replace suspension components. You can get away with not, but I don'trecommendit as a general practice.
Having the wheel straight vs. a little off has little/ no affect on whether your alignment might be off. What could, however, is if the car was aligned with the arm issue going on and not noticed. Not all techs do a great job of inspecting these arms prior to doing an alignment.
Guess I’ll jump in this thread too. I just changed the driver side on my 2016 with 66k miles. It clearly had been recently replaced but the bushing had started shifting. Not only that, once off the car, I noticed the ball joint had a lot of play in it. Did anyone else have issues with the ball joint or was it just the bushing?
First pic is on the car. Sorry the pics are so big.
2014 AMG E63 S212 | 2018 Alfa Romeo Giulia Ti Sport Q4
Good man. That’s the part. I just rolled 125k on my wagon with that part on since 80kish.
I’ll be doing rear dif again this fall and I’ll have it on a lift. I’ll post updated photos.
I’m unsure of this is a characteristic of the car or the strut - but I do have a life time Firestone alignment and I use it every 6ish months. I’ve chewed up fronts - but I do hear that the awd is aggressive and causes it. Just my experience. I only had the oem strut on for about 5k in ownership.
It's a bad design, the outer metal ring of the rubber bushing is not continuous, there is a gap. Somebody posted that they welded a bead as a lip to keep it from sliding in the arm. I did a similar trick 3 years ago and mine is still holding strong: I took out the arm and with a vice and a wood block/hammer I re-centered the bushing and drilled 2 or 3 short little self-tapping sheetmetal screws into the outer ring of the bushing right up against the cast aluminum arm end so that the heads of the screws formed a shoulder to prevent the bushing from sliding through the cast aluminum arm, I thought the forces would sheer off the heads of the screws, but it never happened. I reused my old arm and it has quite a few years/miles/hard cornering since...
Looks like mine is finally going. Those of you who used the Mevotech, did you just replace the drivers side one or did you do both at the same time?
just the driver side my passenger is perfect. This is my 4th driver cross strut at 50k miles on a 2015 but original passenger one.
mevotech seems to be working fine and it’s not a difficult repair. I did a Firestone lifetime free alignment after for 170 since it pulled to the right a bit after the install but that’s the only negative
just the driver side my passenger is perfect. This is my 4th driver cross strut at 50k miles on a 2015 but original passenger one.
mevotech seems to be working fine and it’s not a difficult repair. I did a Firestone lifetime free alignment after for 170 since it pulled to the right a bit after the install but that’s the only negative
12-01-2022, 10:44 AM
