2" lift springs
Hi All,
My 463 LWB is looking a little low (specifically: little clearance under the arches) once loaded up with all the family + camping gear and I think that the springs are tired in any case. I want to fit a new set of 2" lift springs all-round to give me a little extra clearance. However, I have some questions.....
Please bear with me as my only experience of lifting is from Land Rovers and there are always some issues. If I fit 2"+ springs on my G, do I have to:
1. Fit longer travel shocks, or are the standard ones fine (mine are fairly new). If not, any advice on which ones work well in the G (I do mainly expedition/overlanding/greenlaning stuff, so need a lot of damping as the vehicle is always fairly heavy - I had the Koni Heavy Tracks all-round in my LR 110 and thought they were very good, except that they restricted articulation a little.....do they make a set for the G with a 2" lift in any case?)
2. Fiddle around with a castor correction kit on the front trailing arms (I did this initially on my LR, only to bin the 'correction kit' to find that the car was fine without any extra mods). I'm not a great believer in this item as a 2" lift, I think, doesn't throw off the steering angles so much to make driving unsafe and one usually gets more hassles from the props howling, more wear in the bushes, etc, etc, than the 'kit' is worth. As I said before, I eventually removed the castor kit from my LR and found it far better without!
3. If a Castor kit is to be fitted, does one also have to get a longer front prop shaft, or is the original one OK. By lifting a G, does one get more noise from the props?
4. Are there any tips you could give me for making the fitting process easier or areas where one can get caught out (i.e. do I need any special tools?)
5. Finally, which springs - always in your opinions - are the most ideal for my use? As I mentioned, I have a fully loaded LWB 463 (I would say about 250kg of gear in total - including food and water.....and 5 people in it as well/2 adults+3kids)
All input is appreciated.
Thanks,
Phileas
Hi, I fitted Mercedes white springs which gave a 2" lift and everything has worked fine for 4 years without any other mods. Probably not the cheapest option but faultless performance even on desert corrugations and carrying upto 500kg for 70,000 miles now. The right hand drive G wagens have front and rear panhard rods attached symmetrically so as long as you do the same front and back there shouldn't be geometry problems - you are well within Mercs' parameters anyway.
As for props - you will be fine - there is about 50mm minimum on the sliding joints.
You also have to rejig the rear brake load compensating valve above the rear axle and ensure that the slide splines in the propshafts have been stripped. cleaned and regreased along with all the u/j hardy-spicer joints which will all be turning at a different angle
You also have to rejig the rear brake load compensating valve above the rear axle and ensure that the slide splines in the propshafts have been stripped. cleaned and regreased along with all the u/j hardy-spicer joints which will all be turning at a different angle
How do you re jig the brake compensator ? what difference does it make?
fixwin38 wrote:You also have to rejig the rear brake load compensating valve above the rear axle and ensure that the slide splines in the propshafts have been stripped. cleaned and regreased along with all the u/j hardy-spicer joints which will all be turning at a different angle
How do you re jig the brake compensator ? what difference does it make?
Mercedes specify a different length connector rod for each different spring they make. It adjusts the bias back to front based on the load carried.
With the stock compensator rod and taller springs the brake system will read your car as unloaded even with a load and will not readjust the rear bias to cerrect the system.
I did my rear springs and shocks plus front shocks a couple of years back.
On point 4: the following images illustrate a couple of the difficult points, or not exactly difficult, just make sure you have all the tools to hand. The OE sachs shocks on the rear need a different tool to hold them while you undo the nut than the ones I put on (Bilstein in the photo) which worked fine with the hex key, but clearance was very limited so make sure you don't tighten everything to spec then find out you can't remove your tool!
The rear springs took some WD40 soaking and lots of crow-bar coaxing to get them out as the base was stuck. If the condition of the rubber hose on the old springs is good then you can reuse it, otherwise if the springs are a different size best get a new length of hose to prevent damage to the spring seat.
shakir wrote:fixwin38 wrote:You also have to rejig the rear brake load compensating valve above the rear axle and ensure that the slide splines in the propshafts have been stripped. cleaned and regreased along with all the u/j hardy-spicer joints which will all be turning at a different angle
How do you re jig the brake compensator ? what difference does it make?
Mercedes specify a different length connector rod for each different spring they make. It adjusts the bias back to front based on the load carried.
With the stock compensator rod and taller springs the brake system will read your car as unloaded even with a load and will not readjust the rear bias to cerrect the system.
Ok, what do we need to do with a 2" lift then ?longer or shorter connector.?
Longer - probably 2"
My own 230GE was lifted before I got it. As a result of the panhard rods front & back, the chassis/body sits off-centre to the left by about 1/2 inch, but it doesn't cause too many problems, even with bigger tyres.
Longer, or adjustable panhard rods would cost too much, so it will stay as it is.
I have them on my G's, cannot complement them enough.Made by Eichbach. Do not bother with MB ones.Have not heard anyone braking them yet.
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Thanks for all your help and advice. I've spoken to a few people in Germany and they mentioned that the White MB springs are the way to go, but they have only one issue, viz. when the vehicle is unloaded, the dampers sometimes get over-extended. The easy solution I suppose is to get new dampers which have a longer travel. ORC have a set of 40mm springs in stock (which are also a LOT cheaper than the MB ones). Has anyone any experience of these? ph