W124 polybushes ?

franksm

Hey folks

Can't get the rear suspension aligned within spec, and it's eating tyres so I guess I need to renew the suspension bushings. Is there a polybush kit for the W124 ? Polyflex and Superflex don't like many MB options in their catalogs.

Failing that, is there a bolt and standard bush kit available ?

Have done this job before on an MX5 and it transformed the car (felt better than new afterwards)

Car is a '92 230CE with Sportline suspension

Cheers

Frank

I doubt poly ones are available. The W124 (and later W210) rear suspension is very complicated setup with four wishbones on both sides, and the bushings are built in the wishbones. They cannot be renewed separately.

There are four large bushings between the rear subframe and the body, but these don't affect tracking, I think. Especially the front ones affect handling a lot though.

W124 was tendency to wear the inner edges of tires with sports suspension. That's because the rear camber increases more the lower suspension is set. Worn bushings on the two top wishbones accentuate the problem.

Btw, I overhauled rear suspension on my '93 E220 estate (S124) last summer, and it transformed the handling of the car. I'm not sure if the C124 suspension is similar to the sedan. If it is, GSF is a good source for the parts. I had to pay over 400 at Merc. If you decide to renew parts make sure to get all the bolts etc. as well. Some wishbones have been revised (MB sold me parts starting with 210) and require different bore bolts. I didn't buy the bolts and it took me day and a half to drill holes the right size. Not nice.

Hope this is not too much info for you :-)

franksm

wow... information overload !

Only joking Samih, that's a cool post.

There's a crowd in Australia (KMAC) that sell polybushes, they're about EUR300. Other people (in the UK) are telling me that since Mercedes did such a good job with the suspension, to not bother with polybushes and stick with the originals. Polybushes are easier to install than rubber ones, and last forever... so I haven't made my mind up. Then again my car only has an indicated mileage of 113,000 miles - I would like to have more mileage out of the bushes, to be hoinest (or perhaps the mileage reading has been given a 'haircut' at some stage )

It's a sophisticated setup, that rear suspension, but it looks straightforward enough to work on - 5 different pieces, with a bush on each end = 10 bushes, 20 in total.

The subframe bushes - I think those are worn too, as the car does a shimmy to the left at the rear if it hits a pothole/bump under hard acceleration. Are those bushes easy or do they need special tools ?

Lost a long a long post because of a boards timeout, so won't bother writing it again in great detail.

Working on the rear suspension is easy of you have matching set of wishbones and bolts. Otherwise it's a real pain. The spec of parts for estates at least have changed and the current parts are for W210.

Replacing the front subframe bushings is not too bad a job, the trickiest point is to get the bolts out without snapping them. Good penetrating oil is essential. The old bushings can be driven out by placing a block of timber between the subframe and body and then pushing the bushings out using a jack. New ones should be lubed with swarfega or something and pressed back by lifting the subframe upwards with jack.

It's a good idea to change these before anything else to see it it helps with waywardness.

Interesting info about the polybushes. My only concers would be that they may deteriorate the ride quality too much on 124. They are not Beemers you know :-) I just love the standard suspension over speedbumps and such.

Sounds like you'll need to be a guinea pig with this.

franksm

Yeah, that's the one thing that would worry me about polybushes - I don't want to add any harness to the ride. The car corners like it is on rails as is, so doesn't need anything 'better'. Having said that, the polybushes I put on my MX5 didn't do it any harm at all, just made the car feel 'new' again.

I think I might go the route of buying new suspension arms since it does appear some of them have been upgraded by MB.

Think I have a fun weekend coming up once I take delivery of those bits