Old Mercedes Suspension Refresh...4 spanner job

[speeder]

Does anyone remember the old Haynes manuals where they assigned a number of wrenches, (spanners), next to a job description? Used to always crack me up, goofy Brits.

Anyhow, being a cheap bastage and extemely OCD about my vehicles, I decided to save a grand or so in labor and rebuild the front suspension on the old MB w123 wagon I recently bought. This is the one that I flew to N. Carolina to drive back, I paid some shop out there a lot of money to look it over for me and make sure that it was road worthy...what a waste. They mentioned nothing about the front end, which was completely shot as could be expected on a car this old that was never maintained properly. It's very expensive to keep up with major bushings on an old Benz and almost no one does it, TBH. They are all worn to one degree or another.

I'm also checking off a list of other stuff that it needed, which ranges from an incorrectly wired stereo head unit to a bad HVAC fan, other under hood maintenance and a bad driveshaft center bearing. I have the benefit of a parts car that I put a lot of new parts on 3-4 years ago that has not gone many miles since, it unfortunately has a blown engine and is going to scrap soon. Belonged to a lady friend.

I probably should have paid a shop to do all of this and preserved my aging body but too late now. I paid the shop in NC to do a valve adjustment, just checked their work and they must have let a monkey do it...several tight valves and one or two correct ones. They also gave me a car to drive cross country with no functioning cooling system....stuck thermostat and shot fan clutch. This is from a MB specialist shop with a good reputation! Absolutely worthless and I'm an idiot because I could have had it shipped to me in an enclosed trailer for 2022 prices and saved a bundle but here we are.

Not quite a Tim Hancock level surgery but definitely 4 spanners. An engine/trans swap is WAAAY easier and I've done many. Any time you are dealing with springs, extreme care and proper technique is essential.

Before:


After removal:



Parts getting cleaned up and painted:






Next, I bring them to a shop that will press the old bushings out and install the new ones plus new ball joints. I'm replacing all wear items in suspension.

[speeder]

When you clean the parts, all of the cool factory markings reappear. The paint marks on the springs, which are not visible in the "before" photo, tell the Krauts which springs to grab from the shelf for a w123 wagon with diesel engine and automatic trans plus factory A/C, in this instance. They had springs for every possible configuration and in Europe, they sold a lot of variations that we never saw.

All factory parts were marked in those days, often with a part number but always with a star. Here is an example next to an aftermarket replacement part, (from parts car):



Old bushings are as bad as I've ever seen:

[nota]

found lots of common parts used on older M-B cars

remember pulling the whole brake system off an older 450 that got rear-ended
4 brakes plus the master $50 all looked new for my 300sed

I still have the motor and trans 5 banger turbo

[vonsmog]

I have done this quite a few times, not for the faint of heart, if you don't have the correct tools required. I have done both my wagon and coupe

[Seahawk]

Terrific stuff as always, Denis.

Pic of the car!

[RANDY P]

All I can say is: Screw that.

Job for the shop. Good one tho.

rjp

[speeder]

Originally Posted by RANDY P

All I can say is: Screw that.

Job for the shop. Good one tho.

rjp

Can’t argue except that the shop is not going to clean, wire wheel and repaint the parts or take the care that I will on the job. There is also the aspect of having the parts car next to it. But you still have a point.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

Terrific stuff as always, Denis.

Pic of the car!

As you wish!

[Seahawk]

Nice!

They just look so elegantly functional.

What year?

[Bob Kontak]

The estate is dignified yet boasts a little sportiness.

The roof rails are awesome. Is the window trim chrome or a silver coating other than chrome?

[slow&rusty]

Nice Denis!

Carboard...forever a shadytree Mechanic's best friend

[Seahawk]

Denis,

Can you give me a few details: Year, model, engine, etc.? I am not a MB guy but your station wagon is very intriguing to me and I would loved to look at a few and find one to keep at the house in South Carolina in a year or so.

The MB Wiki page on the W-123's is more dense than my skull

[speeder]

Originally Posted by Bob Kontak

The estate is dignified yet boasts a little sportiness.

The roof rails are awesome. Is the window trim chrome or a silver coating other than chrome?

Chrome around the windows with possibly some polished stainless as well. MB was way into stainless in those days.

[speeder]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

Denis,

Can you give me a few details: Year, model, engine, etc.? I am not a MB guy but your station wagon is very intriguing to me and I would loved to look at a few and find one to keep at the house in South Carolina in a year or so.

The MB Wiki page on the W-123's is more dense than my skull

This one is a 1982, they made this model in a wagon from 1978 to 1985 M.Y. Only the 1981 and newer were turbos, (1982-up on sedans and coupes). The prices for good wagons have gone up quite a bit but you can still find "drivers" like this one around sometimes. It used to be a lot easier.

[speeder]

Condition is far more important than model year, they were all about the same with the exception of turbo vs. non-turbo. You want the turbo in these.

[908/930]

So how long is that coil spring it looks like it is about 2'?

[speeder]

Originally Posted by 908/930

So how long is that coil spring it looks like it is about 2'?

18” unloaded.

[speeder]

So, I’ve been chipping away at this job as time allows and of course questioning the wisdom of wrenching on old cars at my advancing age. My body has been sore from wrestling with it at times.

What confirms my decision to do it, (besides the enormous amount of dough I’d spend to have someone else competent do all of this), is the horrible or neglectful previous work I’m discovering. Just so much wrong done by other shops…it’s pathetic. Good work is hard to find.

I paid a MB specialist with a lot of clientele in NC do look it over and do some basic work for me before I flew to get it and I might as well have skipped that. One of the things I paid them for was a valve adjustment which I decided to check now that I have it back home. Two of the 10 valves were adjusted properly or close, all of the rest were off by a lot and mostly tight. The fuel injector overflow hose they installed was inferior quality and leaked profusely on the way home. Always fun to fix your car on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere with no tools.

Here is the latest discovery, someone put brake pads on it that are amazingly wrong. I already knew that they were not correct MB pads by the lack of dust and pedal feel but they are the wrong size!! They fit in the calipers but they are close to 10mm shy of the correct dimension for the rotor, I discovered this by noticing that the wear pattern did not cover the entire swept area of rotor. Check it out:


Here is a photo of a correct pad next to what was installed:



I need to look through the receipts but I’m fairly certain that a shop installed these. It would be one thing if some yahoo in a small town who never works on German cars ordered them from Carquest but I think that the MB “specialist” did it. Like I said, pathetic. When it comes to maintenance on my vehicles, there is short list of shops that I trust.

[speeder]

These cars also came with either ATE or Bendix front calipers, depending on exact production date. They use slightly different pads although you can use the ATE pads in either. My car has one of each, Bendix on the LF wheel and ATE on the right. You don’t do this, unless you’re a dildage with an ATE laying around that you want to sell. Calipers are easily rebuildable 95% of the time if you’re not too lazy. The exception is if you never maintain the vehicle and let the brake fluid turn into dirty toilet water that rusts out the cast iron sleeve in the caliper.

The bad news is that I bought a schit bucket from a maintenance standpoint but I guess the consolation is that I’m saving it from the glue factory.

[herr_oberst]

And you're working outside? Jeez, that looks like no fun, but it'll be satisfying for you once the wrenches are back in the toolbox, knowing that the job is done well, and the car will not only look great - it really is a pretty machine - but it will handle, steer and stop like it's supposed to. The story of the valve adjustment and the FI hose pisses me off, if for no other reason that it just feels like the norm, rather than an aberration.