SD pulling to the left...help?
 

My dad says that his 83SD is pulling to the left now when he drives and slows down, (he just drove it to chicago and back over the weekend) he said it began when driving around in chicago. Also sometimes when turning he'll hear a "clack/click" sound in the steering that he can feel. It only happens sometimes though. the pull to the left is noticeable enough that he has to counter steer it, and when braking he says its slightly stronger yet.

Any ideas on the likely culprit here? I thought maybe a tie rod problem, or a dragging caliper, but they seemed to be in good shape the last time we worked on them, and it has hyper strong brakes. Flex lines are also quite young (maybe a few years old) and brake flush was done less than a year ago with a power bleeder and about 3 liters of fluid.....

Suspension issue?

My car drifts to the right now, my alignment is probably off, I need to have that done sometime. its not very bad but if I let go of the wheel it definatlety heads to the right (but very gradually) and moreso than it did after its alignment about 2 years ago.... When slowing down it tracks perfectly straight though. Probably all the stupid michigan roads destroying my alignment. :rifle:

Remove the brake pads from the left front caliper and try pushing the pistons back into the caliper. (Remove a little brake fluid with your wifes favorite turkey baster first.) I'll bet you have a bad left front caliper. Been there recently.

You won't want to hear this, but Brian Carlton had the same problem on his, it's a broken sway bar bracket. Brian's right side broke and my left one broke. It's a pain to replace it. They can easily rust out and break. The sway bar keeps the upper control arm from shifting. Look at the front suspension and follow the swawy bar into the engine compartment and check the bracket. I'll bet it's broken. It was the last thing I noticed and Brian didn't believe it either till he saw it.

If you just want to replace the bracket, your hands will hate you. If you want to address the surrounding rust you'll really get into the car because you'll need to remove the booster. Also, unbolt the fusebox so you can shift it a little out of the way.

Keep us posted.

Thanks
David

His right side mount was in very good shape when we had the battery out last year repairing that, it only had some surface rust, and we treated it. I don't know about the left one....we'll have to look into it, hopefully thats not the problem! :eek:

Update
 

HORROR. We did a simple inspection and this is what we saw! :eek: :eek:

It appears it has broken apart at the upper control arm?! :eek:

http://www.tglmarketinginc.com/mbfor...r/5Y150019.jpg

Here is a picture from my service library of how the sway bar works....it appears that by design it is inherently weak, and they thread a bolt INTO the end of the sway bar, rather than having a solid end with threads on it from the bar with a nut on the end. Wouldn't that be stronger?? So now I presume the entire bar needs to be replaced....?

http://www.tglmarketinginc.com/mbfor...rschematic.jpg

Bump.

The sway bar design is fine, the problem is salt.

I hate to say it but yeah need to replace the bar. It is a royal pita to get out their is a lot of stuff on top of it.

I would think this is probably a job better left to the dealer since we likely don't have all the tools required to perform this task anyways. :o We're awaiting a quote from them on what the damage would be.

No special tools needed just a lot of time. Look between the fire walls, all those hoses need to come out, along with some other stuff. On my 300SD it doesn't look to bad. However the SDL has a lot more stuff in their and it would be a bigger project.

If my memory serves me a new sway bar is about $500 and labor is probably a lot, maybe 10 hours. I would expect about $1,500 at the dealer, but that is off the top of my head.

You don't bring 25 year old cars to the dealer for crap like this, roll up your sleeves find a junked W126 to pull the sway bar out of and go at it!

Dealer called back and said $230 for new sway bar and brackets, but 16 hours of labor, which would be about $1600 + $230= $1800ish total. :eek:

Are you sure about that? It looks like EVERYTHING needs to come out of there.....brake booster....fuse box........all those hoses and things, the passenger side is no prob, its the crazy drivers side with all that junk in there. and how exactly does one lower the new bar in? It seems like its faaaaaar from an easy job. We also don't have time to do it, my dad's real busy and I have school so I also don't have time.

Is repairing it an option? Can't a new end just be welded on and mounted in again? :confused:

You are in for a real treat if you intend to do the job yourself. I replaced the broken front sway bar on my 85 300SD a few years ago. Everything, I mean everything must come out except the fuse box which can be moved out of the way a little. You even have to remove the actual firewall pieces to manipulate the bar into place. My dealer in town quoted me $2300 dollars. I did it myself in about a week after work for about $600 as I recall. Do not attempt this job unless you have extreme patience, take a lot of notes, label every vacuum line, electrical cord, etc, and are at a level of a top notch shade tree mechanic. The tip of my original sway bar broke off and I couldn't weld another piece on although I have heard of a guy who made some of the tapped ends for this relatively common problem. It's a brutal job but it was a good feeling when it was all done. Email me if you need some advice on the job.

If I could take the car off the road I'd do it myself.

Btw a good indi shop could probably do it for a lot less.

The indy's around here are shady (we believe one of them sabatoged a seal on my 82's tranny when we had it in for service when we first had it) and they all charge $70 or more per hour, so going to one of those would be no better than the dealer, who gurantee's it'd take 16 hours and will do the job correctly.

We were considering this, we can take it off the road as long as needed (to work on it gradually, which would be preferred) we'd need to make changes to our "facility" in short order to work on it comfortably/successfully though. Its going to get cold here real fast and all we have is a semi-crowded 1 stall garage....:rolleyes: I have confidence in my ability to complete the job.....but it'd take a long time, thats for sure. We've been contemplating the options, because hurrying up and building onto our garage to make it a lot bigger :D would be great for this, and future projects. We'll see what is decided in the days to come....

Well...I repaired one a while ago for someone to ..."get around temporary, like "
I used a Grade 12.5 metric bolt I had in the shop.....head stud or similar I think.......anyways....I ground down all the corrosion and paint from the sway bar stub and tappered it off to a 1/4 inch flat point and did same with stud/bolt.

With the shop mig, I started a bead to get the alignment right and got a water spray bottle too.
I welded for about 15 seconds and sprayed with water....did this for a while until the weld was as thick as the sway bar.....after it was cool I ground it down to take the thrust washer and cleaned up the threads.......

As far as I know the 'temporary' repair is still holding up. Charged them $150.00
and no gaurantee's........:rolleyes:

I'm not suggesting you try this, but in a pinch.....!:D

I've also done this to snapped VW Vanagon sway bar links...they all worked fine.



.


.

We have a friend who is a master welder, this is an option.... :D Especially if we give him tips from what you said you did. :D Thanks....we'll consider this as well....