LS430 height sensor revamp/repair tutorial [no welder needed]

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Hi. Some friends of mine suggested that I should post this here for more people to see.

Hopefully it'll help people for years to come.

 

You will need:

About 50 bucks budget for the balljoint rod and the pipe clamp.

Height sensor with bracket.

10mm wrench

Washers that fit 10mm/M6 bolts.

10mm/M6 nuts

Some smaller (8mm wrench)

 

I own a 2001 LS430. The height sensor control arm's slider has rusted and become damaged over the last 19 or so years.

The ball joint rod to the height sensor has also seized too.

 

The height adjustment rod there in the red was seized, and the height slider in the blue was badly corroded and broken off.

 

Rather than buy an entire control arm (green) this is an alterative method to repair it

The arm is ~26mm in diameter.

Buy yourself one of these pipe clamps in 26mm diameter. Or make one. Shouldn't be expensive.

The hole needs to fit a M6/10mm bolt.

Grind off the remnants of that slider from the control arm, and slide the pipe clamp over, and put your 10mm/M6 bolt and nut through and secure it in place where the slider used to be.

 

Rather than using the control arm as a slider, we can instead use a sliding ball joint rod such as this one;

This is a 220 320 00 32 from Mercedes - a height adjustment rod with a 8mm locking and a 10mm/M6 ball joint bolt.

You can pick one up off eBay for cheap. Or find some other M6/10mm adjustable ball joint rod.

Look at the diagram and try to imagine it in your head.

This is what your bracket and rod/clamps should look like.

 

One day I might snap a picture of what my repair looks like, but I hope you can make out what I mean via the diagram.

 

This repair should be very easy. Maybe some sanding/grinding and surface preperation.

 

The clamp will hold on tight and is easy to replace.

The adjustable link rod will last longer and allow for easy adjustment, and less risk of corrosion damage.

Hope this helps. This is a fairly easy job and took me less than 2 or so hours to do.

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Two years on, I've had to do some replacements. While I was down there, I got some photographs.

 

 

This is the old nasty rod arm. It's heavily worn out and barely moves. 

After a bit of struggle with a 10mm wrench, I managed to break both nuts free. Be careful when removing the upper nut as the sensor arm may wobble.

You don't want to damage the sensor assembly.

 

Here's the new height arm added on. This is the 220 320 00 32.

If you look carefully at the pipe clamp, you will notice the remnants of the past, rusted height adjusting slider. This is where you want to place your clamp.

You need a small, thin 9mm wrench to tighten the balljoint on the rod, especially if you are using 10mm nyloc nuts like I am.

 

I hope these late photos help anyone who plans to use this welderless fix.