124 SLS Valve kit update

[Biodiesel300TD]

Hey all you 124 wagon folks, I found a junk valve and tore into it. The good news is that it comes apart, the bad new is that you can only get to 3 of the 6 o-rings inside without doing damage. The control cam on the inside of the valve is pressed onto the lever arm shaft. It will come off but it take some pounding to do it. Once it's off you have to drive the rod through the body of the valve, and it has been slight expanded at the cam end to keep the cam on. It's expanded enough that it really won't go back in without scratching things all up. If you do get it back through the valve is no way to precisely relocate the cam on the lever arm. You could mark it before removal but it has to be hammered back on and I think getting it lined up would be tough while trying to hammer it back on.

The three o-rings that can be replaced are the big one that seals the cover on, and the two on the piston assembly. There are three that seal the lever arm shaft to the body of the valve. One under the cam, and the other two are on the side where the shaft exits the valve.

So the update is, that I could make a kit with the three o-rings that you can get to. There is also a special tool one needs to open the valve. If people are interested I will work out the details. There is also an alignment hole for setting the proper ride height, so I'd wrangle up a rod for that to go into the kit as well.

Here is a pic of the inside of the 124 valve(round one), and a 123 valve(square one) for comparison.

[Billybob]

Originally Posted by Biodiesel300TD

Hey all you 124 wagon folks, I found a junk valve and tore into it. The good news is that it comes apart, the bad new is that you can only get to 3 of the 6 o-rings inside without doing damage. The control cam on the inside of the valve is pressed onto the lever arm shaft. It will come off but it take some pounding to do it. Once it's off you have to drive the rod through the body of the valve, and it has been slight expanded at the cam end to keep the cam on. It's expanded enough that it really won't go back in without scratching things all up. If you do get it back through the valve is no way to precisely relocate the cam on the lever arm. You could mark it before removal but it has to be hammered back on and I think getting it lined up would be tough while trying to hammer it back on.

The three o-rings that can be replaced are the big one that seals the cover on, and the two on the piston assembly. There are three that seal the lever arm shaft to the body of the valve. One under the cam, and the other two are on the side where the shaft exits the valve.

So the update is, that I could make a kit with the three o-rings that you can get to. There is also a special tool one needs to open the valve. If people are interested I will work out the details. There is also an alignment hole for setting the proper ride height, so I'd wrangle up a rod for that to go into the kit as well.

Here is a pic of the inside of the 124 valve(round one), and a 123 valve(square one) for comparison.

I suppose for the reasons you've listed that's why they are considered not repairable. But from your description of the circumstances although the average person probably won't be able to rebuild their own valve, someone could set up a process and the tooling to rebuild them.

From your description an alternative strategy for disassembly without irreversible damage might be to look at the problem from the other direction, remove the lever arm from the shaft and then you could remove the cam with the shaft attached and avoid the shaft's expanded section needing to be moved through the valve body.

That might mean reusing the original lever arm or possibly destroying it in the process and making use of a replacement of some sort. It's an interesting possible micro-business opportunity if there is a decent price point can be found between the cost to rebuild and the price for the MB replacement part.