Does anybody know here about Mercs W123 estates?

Timo Geusch (Timo Geusch ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

If you want to keep the wet arse on it, try speaking to Pleiades - by the sound of it, it won't be alien to them - they do Jag, Audi, R-R and others as well as Cit.

Maybe worth it, but the problem is that it's likely to cost a bit too much to get the car there to get the problem investigated. And at that point I would have purchased the car already - can't afford another duff car purchase as I still need to flog on some ebay stupidity as soon as I get the paperwork for it.

I doubt it, hence the reason for keeping my wallet firmly shut. I guess one could try to bodge on the suspension from a four door W123 but the TE was never available without self-leveling suspension so that sounds too much like an engineering project I don't want to undertake. Mainly because it sounds really cool as long as you don't have to pay for it.

Ha, that's an evil job to do... I've done it twice, and never again.

The system is this: a pump mounted on the front of the camshaft (on most models anyway) pumps a special hydraulic oil (use only Merc spec, or you may kill the displacers). The reservoir is under the bonnet, and send & return 1/4" pipes run under the car to a load detector which is located on the anti-roll bar not far from the diff. Short pipes run from here to the displacers, nitrogen-filled spheres a la Citroen, and thicker pipes run to the actual dampers.

A number of things can go wrong. Simplest to change, the pump can fail. Due to their location under the car, the other parts are prone to corrosion - I have had an MOT fail from corrosion on the pipes.

Replacing these is not particularly expensive in term of parts - one roll of 1/4" copper tube, about £30, and a few fittings, but it's a real b*stard to route, especially if you don't have a car lift - last time took me about three days with the entire car raised 9" off the ground.

The pipes to the dampers can corrode as well, though I have not yet seen one fail. The dampers themselves should not usually fail; it's the displacers that go. If this happens it's like driving a pogo stick; the back end bounces at every bump. You can see it if you follow one.

Replacing the displacers is not too difficult a job, though access to them is very restricted and can call for some ingenuity with the tools; obviously you expect the short 1/4" supply tubes to be corroded and usually need cutting - getting a hacksaw to them can be challenging! The spheres themselves live under the boot floor, which is where you lift them out from. I was able to source some used ones last time, but I'm told they're not too expensive new - ISTR somebody pointed me to a supplier at £25 in the Merc forums.

So overall, the parts costs are not excessive, but the labour cost would probably be astronomical. If you can DIY and have patience and an extensive toolkit, not bad.

Thanks for the info - the car's in good nick but TBH I don't have the time to do it myself (I've got enough 'projects' already) so I think that'd be the one that gets away.

Oh well, back to the drawing board then.

E34 Touring? Much cheapness, but with better handling and performance.than the Merc.

JB

I wonder what it would take to put a simple damper and suitably sized spring on each side?

Could be a useful business idea if you could take the rear suspension from, say, an Ovlov 760 and with half an hours welding put them back on the road all straight and level...

It was a common conversion on XJ40 Jaguars. But probably easier because Jaguar didn't change the runnign gear much over a very long period, so it was possible to use Series III or X300 parts for the conversion. Mercedes spend a bit more on product development so I suspect there isn't the same commonality of parts over several decades/generations.

Not sure about that model but we have had a few Mercs that disconnect the link to the self levelling valve when you jack them up, maybe it's just that?

Yes, yes, I know... And the front suspension is easier to de-clonk than sorting out the W123 rear suspension. What's your experience with the lifespan of the TDS engine? Just asking as it's considered overstretched in Germany and every buyers guide warns you about them as they supposedly tend to crack their heads and all that fun stuff.

Trouble is that my Mazda specialist has offered me a cheap but decent MX-5 that'd make a good runabout and trackday car ('cos sticking the twin-turbo RX-7 into the kitty litter is a very expensive exercise) and I am *very* tempted.

"Fred" > these, is a mega-Euros repair.

It may be - the issue is that it's a Citroen-type 'wet' suspension. Normally that doesn't frighten me as I've had a few of those but as it's been pointed out somewhere else in this thread, the labour charges in fixing the problem can be extremely high. And I don't want to sink another grand into a 750 quid car - no matter how good it is - just to fix the rear suspension.

In that light, JB's idea *does* have some merit.

Ask that question on practical classics website

As long as you don't get them chipped and do regular oil changes, they seem to be ok for at least 350k+ miles. Only probs I've heard of were a dodgy batch of injection pumps. I didn't realise you wanted a diesel.

Not my cup of tea but they do seem well popular.

JB

Dunno about cost but what about retrofitting non SL suspension? i.e. dampers and maybe mounting points & springs. Gotta be cheaper and a whole lot less to go wrong in the future.

Chris

Not necessarily, but given the two cars in my sig I could do with something a bit less heavy on the juice.

There are also a couple of 525iX Tourings for sale around here on fleabay, any opinion on those?

They are, and they're a lot of fun to drive. They're just shit if you need to buy more than a packet of pasta and/or need to stow away more than 2 people.

That seems to be the agreement already so unfortunately I'll give that car a miss. Which is a pity because it's in rather good shape otherwise.

It'll depend on what's died. They're not massively dissimilar to Citroens & everythings about twice the price. Which isn't much more than you'd pay on a Mondeo for new rear suspension :-)

W123 never came without self-leveling suspension so you're looking at a fairly major engineering exercise.

You get used to it :-)

That's slightly beside the point - take an educated guess how many people I manage to fit in each of the cars in my sig...