It does sound like a reasonable DIY job, although my first impression of the axle design was not happy when I found out that just the boots on an otherwise good axle shaft can't be replaced without extremely expensive special tools. I even thought about buying the tools and then starting a garage business replacing boots for other people - but then I thought about the liability of fixing someone else's drive train components!

Well, I also have a 1982 300D which you can see below if I get the picture loaded correctly. 307,000 miles so far - heading for 1,000,000 miles I hope. Also have the Haynes manual and have read through the procedure a few times.

How hard was it to push the axle shaft back into the wheel hub? The differential side should be easy because of no corrosion, but I was wondering if you have to drive the axle out of the hub as shown in Haynes, how hard might it be to get back in?

Also, did you consider a replacement of the differential grease/oil seals at each axle? I have no leaks there but was thinking about doing this while the axles were out.

Thanks for the help, always good to hear from someone who just did the job you're about to try.

Ken

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