It was all a dream; Lincoln Continental, BMW E31, Merc S124

Rear suspension!

This is also planned to be cut springs (for now) and shortened shocks, but.. All S124s (W124 wagons) have self-levelling suspension at the rear, where hydraulic fluid pressure is provided by the PAS pump, via a height-sensing valve and accumulators (like hydraulic spheres on old Citroens) to pump up the rear shocks if needed (so the ride height stays the same, even if you've got 4 portly passengers or a boot full of bricks). So I need to 'delete' that first. It is sort of possible to trick it into holding the level lower than stock, but certainly not 'low' by our standards, so it's going in the bin


The accumulators sit under the boot floor, behind the rear seats, so you can access them to change them if needs be (suuuper infrequently) so removing them meant welding up holes in the boot floor, but has also availed a potentially useful space (more on this later).


Here is a bucket of SLS delete:




Here is the old PAS pump (note 2x high pressure outputs) - bad pic, sorry




Here is the 'new' PAS pump, off of the W210 engine donor I mentioned earlier (for eventual turbo power swaps)




For reference, this is what W124 self levelling rear shocks look like (pic stolen off Google)



These have a 2-point mounting at the bottom, so the lower arms wont work with 'normal' shock absorbers. Luckily non-SLS W124 bottom arms (from a saloon or coupe) are a straight swap, so that's what I used (you can see them in the rear subframe refurb pics I shared earlier)


With the SLS gone, it's a case of shortening the springs to achieve the desired ride height..




..and fitting 'normal' type shock absorbers. As deanflowers said, some use Ford Ranger or Saab 9000 shocks, and the Internet told me that VW T4 fronts were also a common / bolt-on swap. As they were readily available in adjustable form, I bought these:






Gaz told me they were a direct replacement for OEM shocks. Either Gaz are mistaken, or the Internet is wrong.

Firstly the bottom shock mount is wider than the spacing of an OE Merc bottom arm:




So I had to fix that:




Then the OE Merc bottom bolt, & therefore the holes through the bottom arm, are much smaller than those through the bottom shock mount, so I had to fix that..

Found a length of steel tube with the same ID as the bolts, and turned it down so the OD matched the hole in the shocks:






The finished 'VW T4 Gaz front shock to S124 rear shock adapter kit':






curse word like this makes the 20min job of fitting new rear shocks take all afternoon annoying!


THEN, having done all that so that they'll actually fit, they are ridiculously short so either Gaz saying they're the same as OE (for a T4) or the Internet saying OE T4 shocks work on the rear of a S124 (especially given all of the above) was entirely mistaken. Annoying!

This is the car with it's weight on the suspension:



That's not going to work.


I can't send them back at this point (given I turned parts of them down on the lathe, and didn't have the original packaging anyway) so I measured how much longer they'd need to be to sit at the middle of their travel at ride height, and bought these:



I seem to have given up taking photos at this point, but it all bolted together pretty straightforwardly from this point, and got me to here:




This is full droop, lol!




Looks ok I think




Next, finishing bodywork, putting it back together, getting it MoT'd, & paint! (probably not all in the on update)

Your car on full droop is lower then most lowered cars. That's just great!

[thigh rubbing intensifies]
Looking splendid chap. Can’t wait to see it in the flesh. What a difference. I remember seeing the car around the time it arrived with you and knowing you’d do well with it but yea. Cracking transformation. And I think I spelled all the words right this time.

This is excellent. I think I'd be tempted to darken the lights a bit to match the wheels, looks cock on though.

Wait til the weekend

It could have bright pink fly eye covered lights on those wheels and still look good.

I bought a pair just like that the other day! Doh! Thank you though dude, looking forward to catching up

Back to the E31...



Seeing as it was in bits getting painted, and both screens are out...




Brad at Hide & Seam has done a spectacular job of retrimming the headlining & parcel shelf in dark grey Alcantara (+ the pillars, they'd look silly if I left them in the OEM fabric) - and they're going back in the car today!










Very happy with that


Colin has actually finished the paint now, and has the car pretty much entirely reassembled, but I've held off sharing photos because I'm taking it to the Weekender, and I've not even seen it myself yet! Am picking it up tomorrow, all being well - it's been fighting us a bit; the key randomly bricked itself so wouldn't start the car (will unlock it etc.) so I had to relay a spare key down to Kustom Kolors (Brighton-to-Bournemouth) via VIP in Southampton (thanks again dude) yesterday evening. Stupid cars It was showing 'Key not recognised' on the fault code, and apparently they can 'forget' their coding without warning. Lucky I had a spare (though I now do not!), and the car wasn't *that* far away.. Add to that the frustrations of dealing with 2 different glass suppliers / fitters - the front and rear are coming separately, because the glass cover on my insurance will only let claim for one piece, so I'm having to pay for the front (lucky that's 'only' £444, unlike the rear ) - so it's been a bit of a headache.

All will be forgotten when I see it


Teaser pics? Ahhh g'wan then