I think the rebuilt boxes retail for around $3-400, which would be OK if they were correct. He told me that he's had no problems with boxes for other models from the same source. Maybe they just built a bad batch of W123 boxes. He looked up the dealer part, it was something like $1600.

My wife's 300TD had the strangest noise when turning and we just learned to live with it since I could not find anything wrong. It always drove me nuts to hear that strange noise whenever we turned.
I removed the drivers seat to replace the seatbelt buckle and eureka! There was a gold ball inside the front channel of the seat pedestal!
I never would have found it had I not removed the seat.
Next project..............

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'70 F100 shortbed
'82 Diesel Westy
'83 Euro 300TD
Curtlo Viper
Yeti ARC
Surly long haul trucker

My 86 560SEL with 91K has that clunk crunching sound going on too. Left side at my foot. So I had the wife step on the brake after moving forward a little and backward a little. Could see the track rod mount actually moving in and out. But I could swear I had those replaced a couple years ago right after I got the car with 53K miles on it. Could they go bad that quick? Less than 40K miles. Also, I'm pretty sure I had lower ball joint replaced too, and looked at them while I was replacing the tie rod ends this weekend. The boots are ripped on those as well. Looks like a full front end rebuild again. Starting to make me wonder if the parts were actually changed a couple years ago when I supposedly had the front end restored.

I have a squeaking noise on the right side that seems to be coming from the upper control arm. So I have ordered new upper control arms and will be replacing both of them.

Need front brakes as the rotors are below specs. Probably the original rotors if I had to guess. New rotors, pads and front bearings on the way.

Since I replaced tie rod ends, I figured why not go all the way, so ordered new center link and damper. Once tie rod ends were replaced I could see the idler arm moving around too. So new idler arm repair kit on the way.

Geez... time is the enemy on this car. Mileage isn't. I've put almost 40K on the car since I bought it 3 years ago, almost all of them highway miles. Driving back and forth from TN to MD.

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R Martin
Dallas, TX (Addison)

86 560SEL, 128K