I have a 1986 300SDL and the right-side mirror electric aiming adjustment was not functioning. I am in the middle of repairing this and thought I would share what I have learned.

The mirror glass in the 126 (at least the late 126s; I don't know about the early 126s) are attached to the mirror housing in a totally different way that the 123s. The 123 mirror glass removal is fairly simple; the 126 is much more difficult.

The 126 mirror glass is held onto the mirror housing with a large (182 mm circumference) wire clip. The mirror glass was the last piece of the mirror unit attached to the assembly; you cannot remove any component of the mirror housing until the mirror glass has been removed. Removing the wire clip from the mirror glass with the entire housing assembled is tricky.

The first picture shows a mirror housing removed from the car and placed on a table face down. The red arrow points to where you have to insert objects in order to remove the wire clip. The second picture shows the same location with the mirror cover removed (which, remember, cannot be removed until after the mirror glass is out). The two red arrows show the directions that the ends of the clip have to be pulled/pushed to release the wire clip.

The third picture shows the first tool that I used to grab the looped end of the wire clip to pull it and release it from its anchor point. After releasing this end, I used a combination of a bamboo chopstick (with a groove cut in the end) and a long thin screwdriver to push/release the other end of the wire clip. Then you have to do your best at pushing/pulling the wire clip so that it releases from the circular groove in which it rests.

The fourth picture shows the mirror glass removed with the wire clip in place holding the gimbal ring from the mirror housing. You will not see this ring in this state--I broke mine out of the housing--but this photo clearly shows how the mirror glass is held to the gimbal ring with the wire clip. After releasing the ends of the clip, with the very restricted access you have you must get the wire clip tension released so that the four retaining areas of the ring (shown with arrows around the circumference) will release from the gimbal ring. You have to do this at the same time as you gently pull the mirror glass away to remove it.

Just to make all of this even more difficult, the mirror glass typically has an adhesive backing which can sometimes adhere to the gimbal ring. Good luck with that.

...more to come...

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Mike Frederick
1986 300SDL, 240K+ miles
1985 300D KaliKar, 270K+ miles