Hello,


From which seller did you receive these parts?

I'll need to do this job when I rebuild the rear axle on my 77'


Goatman

Yeah the boge/sachs whatever they are now seem to be pretty weak these days. I've given up on them now completely and blamed it on bean counters. I have a thread here somewhere about my observations on the lack of quality. When I do my 88 it'll be koni or bilstein. I've used the gas KYB's and they do seem to be well made, but are harsh on everything I've put them on so far. I'm getting to be an old wuss probably has something to do with it. This 86 is to be the girlfriends car, so I don't have to be annoyed with it every day. Eventually.
It's a good test bed for learning before I start on mine though.

Glad you enjoyed it. Long long ago, I was a fair man with a pen and paper and a few ideas. Now I just sell junk and fiddle with old cars.

I'll admit to cheap tires, cheaper than the Kuhmo's I've been putting on everything for years, General Ultra-Track II's or some such, stock 14" steels.
They are new fwiw :) I figure after I snug up the rear bushings, which aren't all that bad, I'll run it by a shop and see how if feels with a "real" alignment, that will tell me if it's me or the hardware I guess.

The dual channel bit is just silly, it's great from a geeky technical POV, but how many cars have you seen loose there brakes from a failure that this system would prevent? How many have you ever heard of failing like that? Volvo even got rid of it in favor of ABS. I could overlook all that if every single 240 I work on didn't have hopelessly frozen up front hard-lines. Bless scan-tech's little cheap-stuff hearts for letting me buy all the front lines new for $60 or less instead of roaming the junkyard trying to luck up on some or having to cut and flare my own(or order from Volvo). All a PITA. Maybe it happens often in Sweden for all I know, any time anyone dislikes something in a 240 someone says it's because of xxx in Sweden, lol. I plan to swap ABS struts/brakes on my 88 and do away with this stuff, if not larger rotors and alternate calipers(that I don't need).

But they do work alright since a wise fellow here clued me in on removing the rubber coated shims all the pads come with. I haven't locked them up as I try and avoid that in general, but they seem fine for general use, and the pedal is where I want it now.

That's an interesting thought on the shims, I used them since every pad set I've bought for a 240 including the Volvo one's cam with them, and they are even rubbery coated for extra squish. I'll remove them this weekend and see how it acts. I've never really had brake noise problems with the old fixed ATE calipers on anything else.

Best I can do on camber and have it equal is neg .2 on each side, I was going to update my alignment thread today with a question about where to measure to get the 1/16th toe in spec. The factory seems to say "at the wheel" where I'm using LongAcre Racing toe plates that have the measurement point ahead and behind the tire, which has got to screw with the 1/16th spec. I think I'd need more measured so far fore and aft than the "at the wheel" spec. I think.

There is a lot of improvement to be had overall, which is appealing also in a "fun" car. This one isn't getting but so much above and beyond effort, but I look forward to doing stuff on the 88.

Surprisingly, I'm not talking out of my rear. I've owned a number of Mercedes from a, most recently, 73 w114 chassis 280 that I just let go, with 135K on the original suspension excepting one tie rod outer, one ball joint with slighty play, and some vintage DeCarbon shocks all around from who knows when that still damp wonderfully. I put 20K miles on this particular one, with a Solex 4v carb and a single point distributor on the twin cam six no less, in one year, and did next to nothing to the thing other than glare at that abomination of a carb from time to time. I can't count the w123 chassis cars I've had, one was a long timer I sold with 260K or so, several W126's, etc. My long term 300D had something like $25K in service records total, I had a 300SDL with over $40K on paper since new. This is shop prices, and some dealer mind you. This particular 86 240, for comparison, I happen to have service records from 140K or so till it's current 240K of just under $10K I believe it was, $1500 of that was a body shop job on a front fender and partial re-spray at the start of record keeping. So figure roughly twice that amount since new, call it $20K for good, consistent, timely competent service. I'd buy a honda and make a car payment before I spent that sort of money, to be honest, but I buy my parts at cost and do my own work or swap labor when I absolutely have to, so my cost is significantly lower on all these. Unless you drive them into the ground, european cars are not cheap, that's why I am able to keep buying tired worn out $500 240's and have a fair budget left to fix them, and I like to fix stuff.
Your W116 car that treated you so badly was a sad example, but not too uncommon, I have admired them but never owned one for half of the reasons on your list. There is a good solid state replacement for that HVAC nightmare, but it still isn't cheap, they do rust (so do 240's), the steering box's do wear but it's a price for exceptional steering feedback, and timing chains do wear, chain stretch on my M110 in the 73 is nill, ditto cam wear, that motor is known to last nearly forever in most of the world so I'd suspect bad oil or bad oil change practices, and what you paid to have it RnR'd, even in 1989, was robbery, and it is regular maintenance, more so on some of them than others. K-Jet, I love, and have never had a moments trouble with. It's a dead simple system that's two major problems are dirty fuel, and people working on it without an understanding of it's function. If I'd had K-Jet on this 73 I'd likely have kept it. I think you bought a bad car, and the W116 was never and is still not a car to get into lightly, this is why so few are around compared to the w123/6. I don't blame you for having a bad taste in your mouth over it, but some cars are just that way. If Porsche owners, for instance, were not so blindingly in love with there little would be beetle's, they'd have quite the sad long list of crazy expensive tales of woe to tell. But they don't, usually. It's human nature. And if you have to be technically inferior to something, being so to a Mercedes of the golden years is not a bad thing to be in my opinion.



That being said, the 240's are cheap, they were cheap(er) new, and they still are. Also, more simple. Both a plus. I think I mentioned that earlier too, credit where credit is due and all. I will say you get what you pay for with a lot of these cheap parts for the 240's, Mercedes owners are willing to cough up a little more money so the parts quality seems to be slipping more slowly. I sell euro car parts for a living btw.

If the repair and purchase cost was equal, I might have a singular 240, but not the little collection I seem to have now. If this does not work out I'm going to comit to a 5spd swap on a W124 chassis car.