1972 280SE 4.5L Wanderer

Feb 21, 2006 8 Replies

The subject car has 140k miles, was leak free, & rode on rails until a couple weeks back.



She developed a power steering fluid leak, I believe from the steering box, & began to wander.



I noticed a vertical 19mm bolt located next to a mini shock absorber (damper?) on the driver side was loose & had backed off about 0.5 in. I tightened it, which seemed to help, but didn't completely stop the wandering.



What feels like some sort of axial play up the steering column is evident over bumps (again, on the driver side).



Has anyone out there felt my pain?



Regards,



C

Uh yeah, all 108/109 ownerd who haven't had the frot end rebuilt and the kingpns rebushed. Take it apart have a machine shop rebush it, replace all the rubber and it'll ride like new, MUCH better than you're used to.

You'll do this at some point, no point in dicking around fixing onsey twosey things. Just keep telling yourself "this is a $10,000 car even though it's 35 years old". Cause they are these days.

Sounds like the steering damper discharged it's oil and you over tightened it to compensate for the lack of shockiness...

New steering damper?

King Richard scores again! I got the coulmn couple w/ good bushing from the wrecker (for free) & stuffed it in. Good as new. I'll look into getting all new front end rubber.

In the mean time, I've begun replacement of the B2 tranny band piston on my '82 300CD per the link

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Has anyone out there done this? Can anyone expound on Step 6? I can push in the piston cover, & I believe this proverbial circlip has about

3/4" between ends, but what to do with them? Expand/compression with limited mobility/space seems unlikely here & could even prove difficult on a bench.

Am I missing something, or is this article describing a pipe dream?

C

What you're missing is persistance :-) That's my car in the photos.

Yeah, it's a right bugger, but not impossible.

Richard,

Do you recommend needle nose plyers on that circlip?

C

If you're not using proper circlip pliers no wonder you're haveing trouble! Pops off in a few secods using them.

You could spend all day with needle nose pliers, probbaly inventing new swear words along the way.

Keep in mind it's best to swear in German when workig on these cars.

I've got circlip pliers, but see no holes in the circlip.

Push the cover in then use a pick; it's in a grove.

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