Quote:
Originally Posted by sd300td
Just replaced my cable today and wanted to add a few comments to Bruce's instructions; which are the most comprehensive for the w123 that I've found.
First, once the black plastic cover is removed determine if the cable just needs adjustment. There is a 10mm barrel adjustment and a couple of 10mm retaining nuts. You can tighten the spring using the barrel adjustment. Lube everything and see if this corrects your problem. I think this is all that my vehicle needed but once I was in to the task and had the OEM replacement cable in hand, I just replaced it.
This helped a lot, thanks! Just be sure to try adjusting the cable before buying a new one and going through all the effort. The cable is a solid metal line, not a braided cable like a bicycle has on it. It could be kinked as well at the pull handle, but I'm willing to bet that lube and adjustment would work in 90% of the cases.
One more thing that I wanted to share was that a new cable may still need to be adjusted properly. The biggest pain for me was removing the black plastic security cover. Since this needs to be done in order to adjust the cable, make every effort to adjust it before reassembly of the cover and aux fan.
I didn't adjust it correctly and now have a put together car with a cable that needs to be adjusted, which I'll probably tackle tomorrow. My mistake was not fastening the lower driver side dash panel before testing the cable and latch. Everything worked smoothly and flawlessly, but once I fastened the lower drive side dash panel I found that the latch lever barely has sufficient travel needed to unlatch the latch easily. I can still get it open, but it takes a tug of the handle which bumps/hits the lower dash panel. I think if you tighten the spring using the barrel adjuster, lever travel will be reduced and unlatching would take place sooner, i.e. with less lever travel....
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Thank you! Great instructions, WD-40 the cable under the black cover and at the pull handle under the dash. Tightened the slack in the adjustable nut, good to go.
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