help me out here guys
I know how to bypass the oil lines... but are the hydraulic and non hydraulic rear strut mounts the same?
If I get a set of regular bilsteins and H&R springs from say a 93 500SEL for my 96 coupe (no ADS, rear self-adjusting), will it be a bolt on affair as long as the oil lines are bypassed or are the mounts totally different?
I cannot believe all experts on this site have never looked at this option...
Instead of spending $620 for each rear strut ($1200 total), I can spend $1000 and get 4 new Bilsteins and 4 new H&R springs which improves the ride height and handling a lot better and makes more economical sense.
anyone? some one here ought to know, come on, share!
-------------edit-----------------
problem I am having and why I want to do this: Rear was low.. changed accumulators, new fluid and bled the system.. rear was raised but rear continued making "echee echee" noises, then echee echee went away and the noise graduated to cracking and now onto loud thumping & cracking noises even while driving at low speeds... even when I get in and out of the car, I hear a kaboom kaboom thump thump noise from the rear and I am only 190 pounds! It's driving me insane!
At this point, my MK1 VW is a heck of a lot nicer to drive than this thing

 

I think you come across abit pushy in your posting. This is a free, volunteer website and people help other people if/when they can. Anyway, I once has same thought for my car. I went to www.strutmasters.com as they have a kit for rear shock conversions-$400. Problem was the Monroe sensa-trak shocks with overload springs did not fit right and rubbed against the rear primary springs during certain actions (unload after a bump in my case). You will have to install new primary springs front and rear if you replace all the hydraulic shocks with non-self leveling and non ADS shocks. The mounting is thesame from my research in maintenance manuals, if you buy Bilsteins for your year/model. If the ADS and self leveling is working right, the entire car feel and road handling is one of the best of all cars on the market. Replacing the accumulators and fluidis normal maintenance, it just that many people wait too long to do it and damagethe rearstruts/hydralic shocks. Consider keeping what you have checkout the upper shock mounts and replace if needed, or replace the entire strut if needed. In the end, you will be glad you stayed with factory ADS/self leveling design.

 

thanks
with the strutmaster stuff, how did you go about bypassing the oil lines?

 

I think WMERCER was being very nice to you. A Gentlemen and a Fellow. But here's the straight skinny. Go do what you can do, and then tell us how it worked out for you! Add to the knowledge base, why don't you, since you seem to have everything figured out already, why query the board.

 

i have a mercedes s500 1995 can any of you guys tell me wat can i do coz i did change the rear shock from self levelin to regular and my car is to low on the back now
or tell me where can i get them cheap coz as far as now the cheapest i found is $509 each ((( or if any of you guys know`s if they can be rebuilt

 

The primary rear springs are different between MB cars with or without self leveling. If you just change out the shocks, you have to at least also change the rear coil springs. Otherwise the car will droop in the back due to the springs now carrying more weight then designed.I have some ideas on what to do next so send me a pm or email. wmercer@***.net .