oscar
New Member
Remember them from the trading section..... Well I bought them and confirmed that W126 front springs don't fit W116s. But the rest did. Haven't been able to test drive the car as it's landlocked at the moment but first real test will be July 12, Sandown.
Anyway, I was in desperate need to lower and stiffen the ride of POVO and this used set seemed a good gamble to experiment with. According to the seller the kit was from a conventionally sprung 420SEL which was being scrapped.
Part numbers are probably of more use to w126ers but for the record:
Front springs – AMG PN 001126321, other numbers R5W F
Rear springs – AMG PN 001126322, other numbers C7320126R8W
Front shocks – AMG PN 001126323, MB PN 126320010, other numbers 510 57047
Rear shocks – AMG PN 001126324, MB PN 126320011, other numbers 0320515w02
To my surprise all pieces were in very good conditon. The shocks are all Billsteins. The rears are very hard to compress and the fronts are much stiffer than the old removed Sachs shocks. All four shocks had much slower extension rates too. Something advantageous about the front billies that I hadn't thought about before is that the rubber bump stops at the top of the ram mean that these shocks will compress to a maximum that is 10cm approx less than the removed Sachs shocks. The body roll is going to be reduced anyway but this reduced maximum compressability is a bonus.
The springs are factory lowered springs, the rears were shorter by one coil depth compared to the w116 spring. Similarly the fronts were shortened by about the width of one coil. As a guess I'd say non shortened w126 springs are the same length as w116 springs. It was a shame I couldn't fit the w126 front springs. The w116 springs are about 118mm diameter, the w126 approx 127mm. I thought maybe I could do a custom bottom mount or maybe use a w126 bottom mount and adapt it but the top cup even with shim removed was still too small. approx 125mm. Only a couple of mm in it but there would be major cutting and welding to be done beyond my skills and a risk of throwing the front end geometry out. So in the end I used the original w116 springs up front but without shim which lowered the car a little bit.
Can't take good side on photos at the moment but here's some shots during instalation.
Anyway, I was in desperate need to lower and stiffen the ride of POVO and this used set seemed a good gamble to experiment with. According to the seller the kit was from a conventionally sprung 420SEL which was being scrapped.
Part numbers are probably of more use to w126ers but for the record:
Front springs – AMG PN 001126321, other numbers R5W F
Rear springs – AMG PN 001126322, other numbers C7320126R8W
Front shocks – AMG PN 001126323, MB PN 126320010, other numbers 510 57047
Rear shocks – AMG PN 001126324, MB PN 126320011, other numbers 0320515w02
To my surprise all pieces were in very good conditon. The shocks are all Billsteins. The rears are very hard to compress and the fronts are much stiffer than the old removed Sachs shocks. All four shocks had much slower extension rates too. Something advantageous about the front billies that I hadn't thought about before is that the rubber bump stops at the top of the ram mean that these shocks will compress to a maximum that is 10cm approx less than the removed Sachs shocks. The body roll is going to be reduced anyway but this reduced maximum compressability is a bonus.
The springs are factory lowered springs, the rears were shorter by one coil depth compared to the w116 spring. Similarly the fronts were shortened by about the width of one coil. As a guess I'd say non shortened w126 springs are the same length as w116 springs. It was a shame I couldn't fit the w126 front springs. The w116 springs are about 118mm diameter, the w126 approx 127mm. I thought maybe I could do a custom bottom mount or maybe use a w126 bottom mount and adapt it but the top cup even with shim removed was still too small. approx 125mm. Only a couple of mm in it but there would be major cutting and welding to be done beyond my skills and a risk of throwing the front end geometry out. So in the end I used the original w116 springs up front but without shim which lowered the car a little bit.
Can't take good side on photos at the moment but here's some shots during instalation.