I hit a bit of a setback this week trying to find the time to work, but I was back at it last night and today. I finished pulling the old bushings out of the control arms and subframe. I ended up burning the last two out, worked like a charm. I then sand blasted, primed, and painted the arms. I ended up breaking a bolt off the held the spring cup on one arm, so I had to drill that out and tap a new hole. New bushings went in without an issue... slid right in with some rubber paste.
I also banged out the old ball joints from the spindles. The first one came out with a few blows from a 4 lbs sledge... under a minute. The second one took a few hours. I managed to get it to move a bit with the 4 lbs sledge before breaking the handle. The hardware store didn't have any handles, but they did have a 6 lbs sledge, so I bought that. Blow after blow... plus heat from MAP gas... finally the thing popped out. I'm already sore, tomorrow will be worse i suspect. Still left to do: replace the upper control arms, which should go pretty easily. Change the wheel bearings and install new rotors on the hub. Reassmble the suspension. Install a new master cylinder and bleed the brakes. Then I need an alignment. Its going to be tight for the Q, but i'm going to try. Jaime On Mon, Aug 27, 2018 at 8:57 PM Jaime Kopchinski <jaime...@gmail.com> wrote: > Sawzall made the subframe fall out... I cut right through the bushing and > the bolt. Then I spent about an hour beating the control arms with chisels > and big hammers to get the old bushings out. I'm nearly done... just about > half of one bushing to go, then I have to get the subframe bushings out, > which shouldn't be tooo bad. I can get the subframe in the press at least. > > It did make me feel like all of this work is worth it when I saw the > condition of the bushings. Some photos here: > https://www.instagram.com/p/BnALEJCnDwE/ > > The picture showing the offset bushing in the control arm is most > interesting... it shows how distorted the bushings are... it should > normally be centered! I'm really looking forward to getting this car back > on the road, its going to be a joy to drive. > > Jaime > > > On Sun, Aug 26, 2018 at 9:32 PM Jaime Kopchinski <jaime...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> I made some W116 progress... rear brakes are done (I started easy). >> Front brakes, springs, hubs are out. Front adjuster bolts for both lower >> control arms are out. The subframe mounts the rear part of the control arm >> and to the body, so has to come down. The left side subframe bushing bolt >> came out without much fuss. Right side is a different story. I got the >> nut off, but it seems that the bolt is seized to the bushing inside the >> subframe. It took a long breaker bar with a pipe to get it turning a bit >> and I can feel the bushing turning. At least the bushing will be easy to >> get out once its down! I've got to hammer it out, but access is very tight >> to the back side of the bolt. Might need the sawsall. >> >> I'll continue tomorrow. >> >> Jaime >> >> > > -- > Jaime Kopchinski > http://www.jaimekop.com/ > > -- Jaime Kopchinski http://www.jaimekop.com/ _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
