1990 240DL

I'm finishing up some front end work - new ball joints, calipers, rotors, pads and grease the wheel bearings. A few questions:

1. I need to replace the brake lines on the left side since I sprung a leak trying to get one of the brake line nuts disconnected from the old caliper. No big deal.

But I noticed a difference in the way the brake lines are connected to the caliper. On the right side of the car (the side I do not need to replace the lines), the left rubber brake hose that connects to the steel (or brass?) brake line then connects to the top port on the caliper. And the right rubber hose to the steel brake line to the lower port on the caliper.

But on the left side of the car (where I am replacing the brake lines), it is just the opposite.

This seems like it is wrong. Yet that is how it has been hooked up since the last caliper replacement 26K miles ago.

Shouldn't the 2 sides be connected the same? And if so, should the left rubber brake line hose lead to the upper or lower port on the caliper?

2. The car has been in the garage for 6 months so rust has built up on the rear calipers (that are ok and ditto the pads and rotors). To change the brake fluid, I should compress the rear caliper pistons, but this may not be so easy. Can I change the brake fluid, and bleed the system without compressing these back pistons?

3. I read a suggestion to use a dab of anti-seize on the bleeder screw threads for future ease of getting them loose. It this a good idea; would the anti-seize contaminate the brake fluid? And if this is ok, then why not do the same with the brake hose to caliper connection?

4. I was reading about the ball joint replacement and found the following (see below) which seems to contradict each other. I just hooked up the strut anchor bolts, followed by the control arm bolts. What is said below is confusing. What if anything should I be doing?

"When you bolt up the new BJs to the A-arm, before you tighten the 3 bolts, press the strut assembly OUTWARD to gain as much negative camber as possible."

And the reply was:

That's exactly what I did on my first Ball Joint replacement many years ago on a '78 245 in CT. The next day it failed the state inspection's "drive over" test device for camber. Looking at the car head-on from a short distance, it was definitely knock-kneed.

After loosening the 3 mounting bolts and taking up the slop in an INBOUND direction, it sailed thru the camber retest easily. Thinking about it later, I convinced myself that if those bolts somehow loosened, the joints would tend to creep inboard, making that their natural "sweet spot". So that's how I've done those puppies ever since, with no problems noted.



Thanks!