Medium Pimpin' - 1995 E300 diesel build

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

check out Cycle Metrics, off of Thompson road. I'm sure Gary there could help you out. Its a motorcycle shop but he welds too, he's a great guy, worth taking a look.

Thanks for the tip! I'm going to give him a call as soon as I'm done modeling up what I want for brackets.

I spent a couple of days tracking down a rhythmic clicking noise coming from the front left suspension. After having the car in the air eleventy kabillion times, it turned out the noise was just a loose centercap on the stock wheels rattling around

Progress has slowed slightly due to waiting on parts from various vendors. I had to order new lug bolts, since the MAEs are cone seat and the stock Benz wheels are ball seat. The MAEs also want 1/2" shorter lugs. Wednesday the lugs arrived, but it's been raining (welcome to Oregon ), so I waited until today to finally test fit the MAEs. So, without further ado...

4X4 MODE ACTIVATE!

I apologize for the filthy car – like I say, it's been raining.



Pretty happy with the offset - both front and rear are just about perfectly flush with the fenders:



I want to be able to tuck the wheels at least a little bit, so I doubt I'll space the wheels out any further. Obviously I have a LOT of fender rolling in my future.

I also slapped together a terrible photoshop of where I'm thinking for ride height, roughly 3-3.5" below stock:


I also picked up what may well be the coolest valve stem caps ever, made from real live .40 S&W cases:


Pimp-fuckin'-tastic

I'll have more for you all soon!

[siopaolover]

I'm loving this build and all the attention that's gone into it! Can't wait to see this on the ground

[lwrde46]

Awesome.

[Kinghorn]

one of my favorite builds right now. keep it up!

[loekaaz]

no more updates?

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

Aww, you all care about me

Where have I been for the past while? Well, I had planned for a big update blowout as soon as I have some new pics of the car to show, but I suppose I owe you guys some kind of update.

The reason you haven't heard much from me is in part because my girl and I spent most of the month of September overseas visiting Istanbul and the Lycian coast of Turkey. We shot a little video of our journey if anyone is interested:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xagcj4Evy5M"]Turkey - YouTube[/ame]

As for the car, I've been testing a prototype set of bag brackets and making adjustments here and there. This is what version 1.0 looked like:



Obviously the lower bracket was much too tall, but like I say, it was a prototype. After a handful of iterations, I believe I've got a design I'm happy with. Right now the amount of drop I'm able to achieve is limited by tire-to-fender interference, and I haven't had a chance to massage the fenders just yet.

I realize this isn't much of an update, but rest assured, this project is not forgotten about!

[skiierman]

Oh dam, I have been waiting for some updates. looks like your pretty close to getting it all installed. I want to see how your brackets turn out, how is the upper bracket staying seated, I see the bolt going through the lower?

[loekaaz]

Aww, you all care about me

Nope, Just curious

I realize this isn't much of an update, but...

meh

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

Oh dam, I have been waiting for some updates. looks like your pretty close to getting it all installed. I want to see how your brackets turn out, how is the upper bracket staying seated, I see the bolt going through the lower?

It's at that point where I'm dying for it to be done and there's not that much left to do, but suddenly there's all this other shit going on to distract me. Vacation, pretending like I know what's going on in class, grading papers, reminding students that they do, indeed, have to cite sources, blah blah blah.

As for the rear upper bracket, what I've done on the prototype is stretch the factory spring pad over the mount, which then fits very snugly into the spring cup. In my limited testing, it appears to work fine, and apparently a number of VW air ride brackets are simply friction-fit on the top, and I don't hear too many horror stories about them. I figure there's something like 900 lbs of force keeping the bracket in the cup at any given time, which ought to keep anybody from going anywhere.

The spring cups everywhere else on the car are different, so I'm going to sandwich the spring cups with the bracket and a plate on the other side, like you see on the bottom in the pic above.

[zephyrueffer]

Dang, your car looks nice man.
It would be great if you could post up the finished bracket specs and pictures!
I'm thinking about bagging my car and the only thing keeping me from doing so is how to keep the bags in place without permanently weilding the bracket to the control arm.

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

Thank you!

I'll be sure to post up what the final final design looks like. I'm the same in that I don't want to permanently modify the control arms, aside from the little bit of drilling and tapping I've done so far for height sensors.

Here's the design I've settled on, and I'll have pics of the actual welded-up versions as soon as I'm happy with them:

Here's the lower bag brackets, which will sit in the control arm pockets front and rear:


And the upper brackets:


This bracket will obviously sit in the upper spring cups. Once installed, I will drill a hole through the side to fit the air lines.

Finally, these are what I'm calling the "sandwich brackets:"


These will sit on the bottoms of the control arms, and attach via a long bolt to the nut inside the lower bag plates. The piece of structural pipe will loosely interface with the existing holes on the underside of the control arm, to help keep the bracket assembly located correctly.

If my maths are correct, and they rarely are, with the brackets the heights listed, I should be able to get good extension in either direction of the stock ride height, which is good, because the real point of putting this car on air is to get the damn thing up my insanely-steep driveway. Laying on its belly is merely a (major) bonus . My plan is to install the brackets as designed, test the height at 90% extension on my driveway, and then trim the brackets down until the car only barely clears.

[Ey3dol]

WOW thank you for those pictures of the brackets. I will be making these soon. Any chance i can get you to give me the size of holes on the SS brackets?

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

I'll measure 'em in the AM for 'ya. The only variable with those designs for now is how long to cut the 4" pipe on each bracket. I've been experimenting with the length of the brackets, and I'm not yet 100% satisfied with what I've come up with. If you're going to jump ahead with that sort of a design, I'd cut that piece a couple inches longer - you can always trim it down to get lower, but adding material is another matter.

[Ey3dol]

I'll measure 'em in the AM for 'ya. The only variable with those designs for now is how long to cut the 4" pipe on each bracket. I've been experimenting with the length of the brackets, and I'm not yet 100% satisfied with what I've come up with. If you're going to jump ahead with that sort of a design, I'd cut that piece a couple inches longer - you can always trim it down to get lower, but adding material is another matter.

alright, cool. I appreciate it. Ive had my 300D for a few years now and this winter i'm finally getting around to bagging it (hopefully). I love how this car is turning out, keep up the good work!

[MikeyRa]

For what it's worth, my bag plates, like the ones you have, are welded directly to my control arms and spring cups and you can see how it sits aired out.