CL500 W215 Rear end rebuild & renovation

[Roadtoad]

Thanks Chris, I only have myself to worry about. The downside is I always have to clean up after myself !



Today was a big day, replacement of the subframe. After fitting the driveshafts and the discs I reattached my homemade jig. However as the weight of the frame transferred back onto the wheels I had to wedge two pieces of timber to stop it sinking too far to the ground

 

[Roadtoad]

On the drivers side I put the new strut in first as Im still waiting for DHL to deliver the new passenger side one. I couldn't make up my mind which way to do it, strut, frame or frame then strut. I opted to fit the strut first but it was a struggle manouvering around the bottom of it with the frame so I wouldn't do it that way again.

The gravel was a real pain with the wheels of the jig sinking in when they slipped off of the flags and the casters of my jig were buckling under the strain, but they are only cheap plastic ones. If I did it again I would get some of those old metal casters. I kept having to reposition everything but I took my time and used the sheet of hardboard under the wheels when I swung it across

Once in position I lowered the car onto the jig using the standard jack supplied with the car ( I have 2 one for each side ) and a scissor jack in the middle. Checking everything was clearing as there isn't much room for error. Thats all for now, the passenger side strut is still being held by DHL who are saying I need to pay the import duty on it even though I paid it on Tuesday. It should have been delivered yesterday (Thursday) it wont arrive till Monday now. Thanks a bunch DHL

 

[television]

I love your threads shear dedication.

 

[Roadtoad]

Cheers Malc, I think I have OCD !

 

[television]

Cheers Malc, I think I have OCD !

Wonderful work, do take care under there, I had 2 axle stands fail while under the SL. Put some bricks in front and behind the front wheel to chock them.

My axle stands went dead flat, please do take care

 

[Roadtoad]

Thanks Malc I try to take every precaution. The axle stands look a bit rusty but seem ok Ive also bought some newer ones from Halfords with a two ton rating. The front wheels are chocked front and back but you cant see the rear ones very well as they are black rubber ones. Quite good as it turns out, they are only small but with them being wedge shaped you dont get the slight movement you can get with wood and bricks. I might buy two more then I can eliminate the movement altogether. The most dangerous aspect is the jacking up and down with the supplied car jacks. Ive now got three as I bent one on another occasion as I lowered the car it twisted to one side and fell down. Luckily the wheels were on as I had finished the work I was doing, after leaning against the side of the car to try and stop it I finally let it go. There's some weight to these cars isnt there ? I believe your SL is even heavier even though its a smaller car ?

 

[Roadtoad]

Today I reconnected the propshaft, heat shields, brake calipers, speed sensor cables and the handbrake cables. I dont know if anyone else has had the problem of the handbrake cable occasionally jumping off of the yolke when its released, I used to have this problem. To get around it I drilled a small 2mm hole right at the end of each catch and then used two small horseshoe nails threaded through the holes to stop it.

 

[Roadtoad]

Got everything back together and car runs a treat however the car knows it has had amongst other things two new struts fitted and needs calibrating on the suspension. Tried to do it on the drive but as its not very level I took it to a flat piece of tarmac and tried to calibrate it using SDS. Now, Ive read somewhere that the car needs have all the wheels off of the ground to first calibrate the plunger sensors but Im not sure how valid this is. Ive done it with the wheels on the ground, level and straight and it (SDS) tells me that it has calibrated it successfully. But the next stage of calibrating the ride height is where things go pear shaped. You have 3 options of slow medium and fast so starting with slow you get taken to the next menu which shows the romness readings of each height sensor. They are all different varying form 2.98 to 3.49 on the rears. But it states that the front must be between 2.4 and 3.1 for the fronts and -3.3 to -2.9 for the rears. You also get the option of then moving each strut up or down using the F keys and alter the readings displayed. Or you can just go straight into the next bit which lets you manually input what you like. But, whatever value I put in the next boxes I get the message that the values are outside of the range even if I put in the required values. Its seems odd that the range requires negative values for the rears especially when the previous menu shows all positive values. Any help gratefully mopped up

 

[television]

Right been there this last couple of weeks and very hard to level up, it may take several goes.

First do the travel sensor and level sensors, then the auto level and see how the cars stands.

You only need the slow speed to adjust on the manual settings. do not try and get the car too low or it will not accept it when you do the angles. I put in a figure some ½ way between the figures allowed and shown, once you get that right you can go to "load" if you do not go to load, nothing will be stored and it will go back to how it was. for the first few time using the load threw it all out, so I went for a drive and started again with the same figures, pushed load and all fine, once load is OK the memory is cleared and new info stored.

To be sure all OK, unplug the multiplexer and press the raise car button and all 4 corners should raise and lower again. When I had the first problems my front R corner would not raise.

In all about 6 goes to get it level, the auto level sensors is the important bit, and needs a few goes after other level checks done. If the travel sensors are way out then the auto set level sensor will also be out.

You can enter angle figure anywhere between the allowed settings, but only provided that the car is something like the correct height.

 

[turbopete]

Wonderful work, do take care under there, I had 2 axle stands fail while under the SL. Put some bricks in front and behind the front wheel to chock them.

My axle stands went dead flat, please do take care

did the stands themselves fail Malcolm, or did the car move and the stands effectively 'fall over' as the car moved? i have to say ive never known a set of axle stands fail, unless home made, or the car has moved and pulled them over

 

[television]

did the stands themselves fail Malcolm, or did the car move and the stands effectively 'fall over' as the car moved? i have to say ive never known a set of axle stands fail, unless home made, or the car has moved and pulled them over

A 5 ton real garage jack burst its cylinder that caused the car to move sideways, the axle stands were dead flat under the car. No damage or mark on the car, but a real swine to get a car up in the air again when it is standing on all 4 disc.

 

[Roadtoad]

Im still having trouble with setting the calibration. One thing Ive noticed is that in DAS simulation mode there is an extra setting for the load, which Im not being given on the live version. 1st picture shows the simulation version. On the second, the live version, its not there



I dont have any trouble setting the plunger calibration.
On the next screen after I select the slow option, the rear left sensor voltage is always higher than the others in this case its showing 3.25 volts. Does this mean that the sensor arm is too long or too short ? And am I correct in thinking that this voltage must be between 2-3 volts ? I detached both sensors during the renovation and when refitting may have got the left slightly out of its original position due to having to repair the mounting points and the drilling out by guessing where they were before

 

[television]

Im still having trouble with setting the calibration. One thing Ive noticed is that in DAS simulation mode there is an extra setting for the load, which Im not being given on the live version. 1st picture shows the simulation version. On the second, the live version, its not there



I dont have any trouble setting the plunger calibration.
On the next screen after I select the slow option, the rear left sensor voltage is always higher than the others in this case its showing 3.25 volts. Does this mean that the sensor arm is too long or too short ? And am I correct in thinking that this voltage must be between 2-3 volts ? I detached both sensors during the renovation and when refitting may have got the left slightly out of its original position due to having to repair the mounting points and the drilling out by guessing where they were before

The final load menu only comes up after you have set the height and done the inclination angles.

 

[C16RKC]

Wow this is getting technical! Great work and I love your dedication!

So pleased things are coming together it's such a great car.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[Roadtoad]

Thanks Chris and today I finally managed to sort the calibration. For future reference for anyone having similar problems I can now confirm that the voltages do need to be between 2 and 3 volts. The higher reading I got for the rear left strut was caused by the sensor arm not travelling far enough up. So this sends an incorrect value to the ecu which then sends a correspondingly incorrect message to the strut. I took both rear wheels off of the car and checked the position of the small level sensor arm relative to the sensor block. I noticed that on the right hand side its position was slightly higher than the left. As this side was within the required voltages I used its position as a guide for matching the right side. I took the left sensor back off and drilled two more holes in such a way that its new position would mirror the other. Once I had done this and after putting the wheels back on I was able to run the calibration and entering the set values or 2.4 and -3.3 I got the message on SDS of Calibration successful. I will just add that I could have saved myself a lot of time and effort if I had just replaced the damaged sensors instead of repairing them but being a tight Yorkshireman I repaired the old ones not realising how exact their positions have to be. Still its been another learning experience and hopefully anyone else having similar problems can learn from this as there is very little information out there

 

[television]

Mercedes charge £85 each for those simple sensors, pleased you are all done.

 

[Clvannoy]

Thanks Chris and today I finally managed to sort the calibration. For future reference for anyone having similar problems I can now confirm that the voltages do need to be between 2 and 3 volts. The higher reading I got for the rear left strut was caused by the sensor arm not travelling far enough up. So this sends an incorrect value to the ecu which then sends a correspondingly incorrect message to the strut. I took both rear wheels off of the car and checked the position of the small level sensor arm relative to the sensor block. I noticed that on the right hand side its position was slightly higher than the left. As this side was within the required voltages I used its position as a guide for matching the right side. I took the left sensor back off and drilled two more holes in such a way that its new position would mirror the other. Once I had done this and after putting the wheels back on I was able to run the calibration and entering the set values or 2.4 and -3.3 I got the message on SDS of Calibration successful. I will just add that I could have saved myself a lot of time and effort if I had just replaced the damaged sensors instead of repairing them but being a tight Yorkshireman I repaired the old ones not realising how exact their positions have to be. Still its been another learning experience and hopefully anyone else having similar problems can learn from this as there is very little information out there

Thank you for sharing

 

[Craiglxviii]

Holy thread resurrection, Batman!