Been putting up with a "droopy" tailgate since I bought the car, a 1987 300TD (300TDT), 124 chassis, wagon, a year ago so decided to bite the bullet...and bought new struts.

Here's a step-by-step guide to the process of replacing the struts: (Plan for at least two hours with good daylight for the job)

Find something to support the tailgate so it doesn't fall on you, crack your skull, or break your legs. It's very heavy.
I found my garage push broom to be ideal, using the head of the broom to support the tailgate and jamming the handle end into the floor of the cargo area.

1. From outside the car, with the tailgate propped open as far as it will go, look into the tailgate hinge area. You can see the strut ends attached to the tailgate hinge. Remove the metal clips holding the tailgate wiring with its protective rubber along side the tailgate hinge. You'll need to pry this wiring out of the way to get at the hinge pins. Use a pair of long nose plyers or hemostats to remove the "C" clips that hold the pin. The "C" clips are on the outside of the pins. It's probably dirty and hard to see back there...but the "C" clips have a little metal tab at right angle to the clip you can grab with the plyers. You might have to rotate the "C" clips around with a hook or bent coathanger to get the tab to the back where you can reach it. Now move the tailgate up and down until you release the tension on the pin and push the pins out (to the inside). If the pins or hinge are rusty, you may have to squirt with some penetrating fluid loosen up the pin and wait a while. Mine were not rusty and came out easily, but others have reported some difficulty with pins stuck due to rust.

2. Remove the four screws at the very back of the rear center plastic roof panel.

3. Also remove the two screws in the top of the two plastic side panels over the "D" pillar on each side of the tailgate.

4. Go inside the cargo area and remove two screws in the front corners of the center plastic panel.

5. Pull the "D" pillar panels outward at the top just enough to free the corners of the big center roof panel. (others have said it's easy to pull the whole side panel out...the edge is held in place by the window seal rubber, but I didn't do this.)

6. Pry the center panel downward at the rear about a half inch and pull out towards the rear of the car. There are two metal locating tabs that slide out of holes in the roof sheet metal. When re-installing this panel these tabs must be relocated to slide back forward into the holes in the roof.

7. Now go inside the car, lying down in the cargo area on your back...long arms are helpful. The rear of the headliner has a small metal rod across the rear of it and holds the headliner in place with three metal tabs in the roof. Grab that metal bar right next to each of the tabs and slip the bar and headliner outside the tabs. The headliner will now hang down inside the car, but not enough to see the forward part of the struts.

8. There are two plastic round black pins that also hold the headliner near the front of each of the struts. Pry those out. The headliner should now hang down enough for you to see the pins holding the front of the struts. They're much bigger than the rear pins. I found it useful to roll the headliner up as tightly as possible and clip it with a couple of small clamps or clothes pins...otherwise it's constantly hanging down in your face and blocking your view of the struts.

9. There are two metal tabs, ...again, part of the roof sheet metal,.... that are bent over the back of each of the big pivot pins in the front of the struts.....(very mickey mouse system...IMHO...of securing these pins),.... pry these tabs back out of the way so that the pins can come out. Then remove the pins from the front of the struts. They should come out easy since you've already released the rear pins. If you haven't yet removed the rear strut pins, you'll have to move the tailgate around to take tension off the pins.

10. You will be removing the struts to the inside of the car, but you'll find some wires and hoses in the way. They are held in place by a plastic ring clips that snap into the roof. Pry out that plastic clip so you can push the wires to the side a bit...out of the way.

11. With the wires and hoses in the roof pushed out of the way, remove the strut to the inside of the roof. The headliner may still appear to be in the way but the headliner is held in place by another metal rod sewed into it that works like a "bow". It will snap downward towards the floor (it's not attached to the roof) and give you plenty of room to get the struts out.

Putting the struts back in is the reverse of this process, of course.

12. Put the new struts in place and insert the rear pins. Don't forget to bend the metal tab back into place to hold them....I did...and had to go back in and do it.

13. The trickiest part is getting the pins back into the rear of the struts at the tailgate end and then the "C" clips back onto the pins. It just takes patience and several tries with the long nose plyers (or hemos) to get the pins lined up and inserted. Insert from the inside of the car towards the outside. It helps to use a long flat blade screwdriver to lever the loose end of the strut upwards into place and it can also help to have someone around to move the tailgate around a bit until you get the pin lined up with the holes in both the strut and the tailgate hinge. The tailgate is really heavy....so make it a strong person. My push broom also helped here a lot....making it easier to move the tailgate and hold it in a new position. Once you get one side done, the tailgate will stay up by itself, making the next pin easier...but you still have to "jimmy it" around to get the holes lined up.

13. Once the rear pins are in place, re-insert the "C" clips with your long nose plyers or hemo. It will probably take several tries ...with the clip popping out of the plyers several times. Just keep at it ....have patience...until you get the clip in place. One of those magnetic "retriever" rods is helpful to retreive a dropped clip. Also re install the metal clips on each side holding the tailgate wiring to the hinge....another job I found a little tricky. Liberal swearing helps.

14. Now go back inside and check the wires and hoses in the roof to make sure nothing got detached from moving them around. Put the plastic holding clips back in if you can.

15. Snap the middle headliner bow back in place towards the roof. Replace the rear headliner rod behind the three roof tabs at the tailgate end and re-insert the round black plastic headliner clips on the sides near the front of the struts.

16. Insert the corners of the plastic center roof panel inside the top of the plastic "D" pillar covers. Now look inside the roof plastic, between the plastic and the roof and, while pushing the panel forward, guide the metal holding tabs back into their holes in the roof sheet metal.

17. Replace all the screws in the plastic roof panel and "D" pillar covers.


Now your tailgate won't hit you in the head and you probably saved yourself $300-$400 worth of labor at the local MB shop.


Warren C>

does anybody know if this procedure holds true for a 1995 wagon? am i right in assuming there are 2 struts?

1995 Wagon is also a 124 body so the procedure should be the same.

WC

just for the sake of posterity, the above described procedure did in fact work on my 95, so its clear that nothing was changed over the entire live of the W124 with regards to the hatch.

three things of note:

1)the forward most pins, the one held in place by the sheet-metal tab are about 1 3/4" long. For some reason I couldn't release the tension on the driver side pin and it took a lot of prying, vice-gripping, lubing and swearing to get it out. Once it was though, the rear-most pin practically falls out and the subsequent pins one the other strut are easy as pie.

2) I was a one man show, but with some lashing connected to my garage door frame acting as an emergency catch, and an tall a-frame ladder wedged under the hatch I was able to work with a mitigated fear of being guillotined to death. the hatch is heavy btw. It would have gone a lot faster with some helping hands.

3) once you're all said and done and ready for a test, watch your face. I was used to a flaccid hatch and with the new shocks, that sucker rises with reckless abandon. Seriously, its got velocity. I was only able to avoid decapitation thanks to my cat-like reflexes.

in closing, it was a fun easy project and now if I ever need to catapult anything over a castle wall, I'm set.

I just got back from doing these hatch struts and I just want to point out that these directions definately help you out finding what needs to come off and go on however I ended up doing something a little different.

I pulled the driver side strut out, put the large front pin in and could not line up the rear smaller pin, even though the pin wasn't in it held the hatch up thats for sure!

At that point I started removing the other strut and as soon as the rear pins were out the hatch lifted higher so I propped it up as high as I could.

At that point I was able to put the rear pins in with "C" clamps and the front pins second instead. This worked well with two people, I tried getting the rear pins in first on my own and was unable to properly line it up, the space to work with was just too small.

Just thought I would share my two cents.

__________________
'87 300TD Estate (Panzer Wagon, Sold)
'95 E320 Estate (Sabertooth, Sold)
'94 E500 (Stark 1, For Sale)
'04 VW GTI (Rhino, Sold)
'12 VW GTI Autobahn (Shadow)

old thread... i bought a pair of struts... febi: 124 980 01 64
it looks more robust... the shaft is a lot thicker as well as the rear end link... the thing is, after removing and comparing the new strut with the old one, the rear link, where it attaches to the tailgate hinge, is thicker than the old link... i don't have the bolts with me right now but i think i'll need longer bolts if i'm to lock it in place with the old c-clips... also, the GAP between the two "prongs" is wider by 2mm...making overall width prong-to-prong a little over 2mm. was there ever an updated version of the strut? it's for an 87 300TD

__________________

85 190E 2.3(SOLD)
86 230E (-->300D) sold
87 300D (-->300TD) sold
68 250S w/ a 615 and manual tranny (RIP)
87 300TD (SOLD)
95 S280 "The KRAKEN" (Turbo 2.9 602 transplant) traded
86 190E 2.3... current project

Bump

__________________
John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 560SL convertible
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
2005 Dodge Sprinter 2500 158"WB
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

This is an excellent write up. Follow this step by step and you will get the job done.
Bumping this up for some one else to read.
Thank you.

__________________
If it ain't broke take it apart and find out why.

1983 300SD, 4 speed
1994 C280
1987 300TD wagon
1996 HD Road King

Ride in Peace Eric Peterson, Harley of Macon

These instructions were great! I actually replaced just one strut as the soft metal end of the 2nd new one broke on installation. I simply reinstalled the old one on one side and the hatch works perfectly.

Fast forward today, and I was installing the 2nd strut. I felt it was a lot easier to NOT put in the rear pin first, as per the instructions above. Instead use your fingers to adjust the strut from the inside, holding on to the rubber boot to line up the outer pin. Once that one is in, it's a simple matter to push the hatch ALL the way up (just a few mm is all you need) and the rear pin slides in easily.

Another thing not mentioned is the fact that the left and right "lips" of the large rear trim need to go back UNDER the window seals. This is a tricky job, but with some stiff flat plastic trim tool, it can be done.

The bloody hatch is now HARD to close and one must be careful to control the hatch when it opens as its gonna fly up! On a side note, my entire rear hatch carpet is soaked. New problem to fix.

Fix your struts though. Easy job and very satisfying!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

__________________
1987 300TD
1984 300D
755,000 KM and going strong
BC Canada

Okay... A possibly dumb question.... By "rear", do you mean from the perspective of working on the trunk? In other words, is the rear pin actually closer to the front of the car?

I need to tackle this project soon, so thanks for the clarification.

__________________
1968 220D, w115, /8, OM615, Automatic transmission.
My 1987 300TD wagon was sold and my 2003 W210 E320 wagon was totaled (sheds tear).

Yes, that is correct. Rear because you're standing at the back looking toward the front of car.

Another thing I just remembered...don't need to take out the clips that hold the rubber boot for the wires. Simply push them up as far as they'll go. You can take them out, but they're really tough to put back.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

__________________
1987 300TD
1984 300D
755,000 KM and going strong
BC Canada

I did mine today! Thanks for the write up!
I've been putting this off for a year. It stayed up during the summer but as the temps dropped so did the hatch. I finally had it.
It took me about 2 hours. On assembly I installed the rear pins with the hatch closed. I pushed the rubber boot onto the hatch arm and held it in place with locking pliers (on the arm do not pinch the rubber boot).There is more room this way just slide the pin slightly in to one side of the strut before you line them up and than once the pin is pushed all the way in open the hatch and slide the clip on with a magnet from the outside.

I know this is an old thread, and the instructions were great. But is there a clever trick or something to tuck the large center trim piece back under the window rubber seals?

yeas use a lot of silicone lubricant start a corner and the rest slides in place