andy_k
MB Enthusiast
not so much "playing with it" more doing a few jobs I've been putting off for a while - namely new disks and pads all round and the accumulator spheres on the back.
some jobs are easy and taks no time at all - for that you can include the brakes - an absolute breeze
then came the suspension spheres, these sadly do not fit into the easy category, in fact they are an absolute pain, the job goes something like this....
1, armed with 2 new spheres. copper washers, rubber body seals wake up one morning and say "this is a good day to take my car to pieces"
2, empty everything out of the rear of the estate - in my case this included a full PA system and numerous other cases of leads, guitars etc
3, with the boot empty set about removing the piece of trim that needs to come out to allow access to the spheres, simple job, only six screws then lift.........., hmmm maybe not, remove a few more bits of trim which involves removing the seat belts for the back seats......hmmmm nope, it still won't come out, now remove the rear pillar trims and all of the interior trim just falls out - nice
time for a ciggy before getting dirty.
4, Jack the car up and get it on the axle stands, rig the extension lamp up to see where the nuts that hold the spheres in place are - oh lovely, they are in just about the most inaccessible place on the car - hidden behind all the hydraulic pipes (more of those later) and the drive shafts, so with various sockets and universal joint adaptors manage to undo 3 of the 6 bolts - the last two steadfastly refusing toi be undone as the captive bolts they are screwed on to are no longer captive - start swearing
time for another ciggy whilst a new plan is formulated
5, decide that there may be a better way of getting at the nuts if the hydraulic pipes are disconnected - check the haynes manual - it says release some pressure from the system by undoing the bleed screw on the self levelling unit.....hmmmm - that will be the screw on the TOP of the unit where there isn't a hope in hell of getting a screwdriver/spanner in place - swear some more
6, release pressure from the system using "plan B" not as subtle or neat but equally as effective, undo one of the banjo connections on the base of the sphere and let the oil trickle out into the carefully placed container,
7, realise that plan B was ever so slightly flawed and try and escape the jets of hydraulic oil which are now going everywhere except the container, whilst covered in oil remove the banjo connection completely and just as the oil starts to flow nicely into the container - drop the union in the oil - swear a lot
time for yet another ciggy whilst the oil drains and before repeating on the other connection
8, repeat plan b on the other connection not forgetting to knock the bowl with the old oil in it over whilst trying to escape the flow of oil - swear an awful lot and try to mop the oil up
9, time to remove the last two hydraulic pipes - these look like brake pipes but no spanner in the world will fit these unions, 9mm is too small, 10mm is too big, none of my brake spanners fit them nor those in stock at the local tool specialist - big thanks to annie for driving back and forth buying up their complete stock of brake spanners - ho hum they'll come in useful at some stage
decide that you've had enough for the day and pack everything away knowing that as soon as you start work on it tomorrow everything will miraculously be easy.
10, start of day two and realise that only someone very stupid would have packed up yesterday with such optimism - there is no way on gods earth that those unions are going to come out cleanly, what started life as 11mm unions have rusted down to some unknown size that nothing is going to fit except..........
11, get the nice sharp chisel and cut the unions off flush with the shaft of the spheres - at least this way when the last 3 nuts are removed the spheres will lift out easily and how hard is is to make a couple of hydraulic pipes?
12, snap the pipes off the level valve and undo the unions using a socket - ooh now we are getting somewhere...
time for a ciggy break and get some of the hydraulic oil off hands, arms, face etc
13, the answer to that question about hydraulic pipes? - normally it's easy, pipe flaring tool, couple of unions and job done - except these hydraulic pipes are different - they have a spring insert which looks like no hydraulic pipe I've ever seen, nobody can answer why the insert is there or what purpose it serves but it's got to be there for a reason.
14, phone the dealer and order the new pipes - "they'll be here tomorrow sir", ho hum, no point worrying - I don't really need the car until the weekend so I'll get back to removing those last few nuts.
15, captive bolts that are no longer captive - looks like only one course of action here - the grinder - now this is fun, oil dripping from all the holes in the system, trying to get a grinder attached to the end of a power dril into the smallest and most awkward place on the car - swear a lot
16, 2 hours of grinding high tensile steel in a steady flow of dripping oil that no amount of plugging will stop and the spheres are finally free
17, notice that the grinder has also ground a nice hole in the levelling units bracket which was held in place by the captive nuts you've just ground off but has just landed in your face as there is nothing holding it in place anymore - swear some more then phone the dealer again and order a new bracket "it'll be here tomorrow sir"
18, most sane people would call it a day now - well, half a day and go to the pub, but annie suggested I may as well put the new spheres in - first one goes in like a dream and the main banjo union bolts straight up. bolt the second one in and realise that it's pointless as the bracket which you have just ordered from the dealer needs to be in place before the nuts are tightened - swear some more at your own stupidity
19 remove the damned thing again, lift it out of the car and .......because your hands are covered in oil drop it, usually this wouldn't be a problem but when it happens to land threaded section down on an upturned socket flattening a section of the thread then it becomes a problem - swear an awful lot.
20, pack up all the tools etc and head down to your friendly engineering workshop, borrow a 16mm tap with a 1.5mm thread pitch and recut the thread on the sphere as all the taps and dyes you own are standard metric ones not metric fine.
so thats how I've wasted 8 hours over 2 days, far too many cigarette breaks and an awful lot of bad language not quite completing a job that should have taken me about 3 - I'll get it finished tomorrow
This is why I'm not touching any more W124 rear suspensions for a long time
Andy
some jobs are easy and taks no time at all - for that you can include the brakes - an absolute breeze
then came the suspension spheres, these sadly do not fit into the easy category, in fact they are an absolute pain, the job goes something like this....
1, armed with 2 new spheres. copper washers, rubber body seals wake up one morning and say "this is a good day to take my car to pieces"
2, empty everything out of the rear of the estate - in my case this included a full PA system and numerous other cases of leads, guitars etc
3, with the boot empty set about removing the piece of trim that needs to come out to allow access to the spheres, simple job, only six screws then lift.........., hmmm maybe not, remove a few more bits of trim which involves removing the seat belts for the back seats......hmmmm nope, it still won't come out, now remove the rear pillar trims and all of the interior trim just falls out - nice
time for a ciggy before getting dirty.
4, Jack the car up and get it on the axle stands, rig the extension lamp up to see where the nuts that hold the spheres in place are - oh lovely, they are in just about the most inaccessible place on the car - hidden behind all the hydraulic pipes (more of those later) and the drive shafts, so with various sockets and universal joint adaptors manage to undo 3 of the 6 bolts - the last two steadfastly refusing toi be undone as the captive bolts they are screwed on to are no longer captive - start swearing
time for another ciggy whilst a new plan is formulated
5, decide that there may be a better way of getting at the nuts if the hydraulic pipes are disconnected - check the haynes manual - it says release some pressure from the system by undoing the bleed screw on the self levelling unit.....hmmmm - that will be the screw on the TOP of the unit where there isn't a hope in hell of getting a screwdriver/spanner in place - swear some more
6, release pressure from the system using "plan B" not as subtle or neat but equally as effective, undo one of the banjo connections on the base of the sphere and let the oil trickle out into the carefully placed container,
7, realise that plan B was ever so slightly flawed and try and escape the jets of hydraulic oil which are now going everywhere except the container, whilst covered in oil remove the banjo connection completely and just as the oil starts to flow nicely into the container - drop the union in the oil - swear a lot
time for yet another ciggy whilst the oil drains and before repeating on the other connection
8, repeat plan b on the other connection not forgetting to knock the bowl with the old oil in it over whilst trying to escape the flow of oil - swear an awful lot and try to mop the oil up
9, time to remove the last two hydraulic pipes - these look like brake pipes but no spanner in the world will fit these unions, 9mm is too small, 10mm is too big, none of my brake spanners fit them nor those in stock at the local tool specialist - big thanks to annie for driving back and forth buying up their complete stock of brake spanners - ho hum they'll come in useful at some stage
decide that you've had enough for the day and pack everything away knowing that as soon as you start work on it tomorrow everything will miraculously be easy.
10, start of day two and realise that only someone very stupid would have packed up yesterday with such optimism - there is no way on gods earth that those unions are going to come out cleanly, what started life as 11mm unions have rusted down to some unknown size that nothing is going to fit except..........
11, get the nice sharp chisel and cut the unions off flush with the shaft of the spheres - at least this way when the last 3 nuts are removed the spheres will lift out easily and how hard is is to make a couple of hydraulic pipes?
12, snap the pipes off the level valve and undo the unions using a socket - ooh now we are getting somewhere...
time for a ciggy break and get some of the hydraulic oil off hands, arms, face etc
13, the answer to that question about hydraulic pipes? - normally it's easy, pipe flaring tool, couple of unions and job done - except these hydraulic pipes are different - they have a spring insert which looks like no hydraulic pipe I've ever seen, nobody can answer why the insert is there or what purpose it serves but it's got to be there for a reason.
14, phone the dealer and order the new pipes - "they'll be here tomorrow sir", ho hum, no point worrying - I don't really need the car until the weekend so I'll get back to removing those last few nuts.
15, captive bolts that are no longer captive - looks like only one course of action here - the grinder - now this is fun, oil dripping from all the holes in the system, trying to get a grinder attached to the end of a power dril into the smallest and most awkward place on the car - swear a lot
16, 2 hours of grinding high tensile steel in a steady flow of dripping oil that no amount of plugging will stop and the spheres are finally free
17, notice that the grinder has also ground a nice hole in the levelling units bracket which was held in place by the captive nuts you've just ground off but has just landed in your face as there is nothing holding it in place anymore - swear some more then phone the dealer again and order a new bracket "it'll be here tomorrow sir"
18, most sane people would call it a day now - well, half a day and go to the pub, but annie suggested I may as well put the new spheres in - first one goes in like a dream and the main banjo union bolts straight up. bolt the second one in and realise that it's pointless as the bracket which you have just ordered from the dealer needs to be in place before the nuts are tightened - swear some more at your own stupidity
19 remove the damned thing again, lift it out of the car and .......because your hands are covered in oil drop it, usually this wouldn't be a problem but when it happens to land threaded section down on an upturned socket flattening a section of the thread then it becomes a problem - swear an awful lot.
20, pack up all the tools etc and head down to your friendly engineering workshop, borrow a 16mm tap with a 1.5mm thread pitch and recut the thread on the sphere as all the taps and dyes you own are standard metric ones not metric fine.
so thats how I've wasted 8 hours over 2 days, far too many cigarette breaks and an awful lot of bad language not quite completing a job that should have taken me about 3 - I'll get it finished tomorrow
This is why I'm not touching any more W124 rear suspensions for a long time
Andy
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