Door Not Closing/Latching Door Striker Repair W123
 

Door Not Closing/Latching Door Striker Repair W123
This is about repair even if it is only a temp repair till you get replacement.

The cause is the piece of rubber that protrudes about 3/16th of an inch from the Striker is gone. That is the part that is most responsible for pushing the Latch in the door into position.

In the first pic is one where the rubber is still attached and good. But, that is the part that comes of over time.

In my first repair I used Epoxy Putty to replace that rubber sort of nose. It worked but before a year was out cracked off. Although partially cracked off 2 continued to work.

So today I had to fix the other 2 on the drivers side. I used a Hot Glue Gun with the Glue Stick. The hot glue is a better replacement then the epoxy because it is more rubber like. Due to the clearness of the Glue Stick it is hard to see how much I built it up in the photo
Note that they do have black glue sticks available that would make it look better.

Having just done it today I don't know the longevity of the glue stick repair. However, I had previously bought 2 cheap Door Striker assemblies and they lasted about 1 year before that same rubber piece came off.

After hollowing out the area inside of the Striker where the rubber strip goes you can do the Epoxy or hot glue repair without removing the Striker from the Door Frame. However, do not get anything into the groove on the bottom of the Striker.

That isn't the only part that's important for the striker to operate correctly, there's also a plastic piece in the square hole on the bottom that breaks off (you can see where it used to be in your 2nd photo. The door will still close and latch happily for years with the leading plastic piece that you repaired broken off, you just have to close it slightly harder. When the lower piece in the square hole goes, that's when you have to start slamming super hard multiple times and have failure to latch.

Striker Plates
 

An interesting repair, I hope it works out .

You live in Long Beach so why not just go buy some good strikers ? . they're the same in W126's and as long as that black rubber bit is still black and uncracked you're good to go .

The repops are crap and not worth spit .

New are still available, not cheap but not horribly $pendy either .

Actually... The repro internals are totally fine. It’s the body of the repros that are poorly stamped.
Based on information you provided in the last one of these threads, I pulled a couple 126 strikers from the yard. Couldn’t find any with good rubber, so brought them home and transferred the rubber from the two meyle/uro units I had on the car. I’ll be damned... They work perfectly now.

I tried repairing by cutting wood to fit where the rubber piece that sticks out goes. That didn't work but I didn't know about the square hole in pic 2 above.

Lubed latches seem to prevent the rubber piece damage but open for discussion is what lube to use. Some attract dirt and become a problem. Graphite seem to work but I've read of it messing up lock tumblers so don't know for sure that it is a great solution.

So, what lube?

Latch & Lock Cylinder Lubricants
 

Graphite is the only thing you should use in key lock cylinders, it cannot and never has, gummed up anything .

Latches should be lubed with a heavy grease / oil typ lubricant, there are many that are largely 'dustless' as they go on thin, usually in a liquid form then the carrying agent evaporates leaving you grease that's not sticky to dust .

? Remember being in the Military long long ago ? .

Those little plastic tubs of rifle grease you kept in the butt stock's trap door were Lubriplate special dustless grease, it's fantastic stuff and cheaper than dirt, I buy a bunch of tiny tubs at a time and they last me a few decades....

In photo #2 that is epoxy that I put on in the slot area.

No. Look at picture 2. There's a big square hole on the bottom of the striker where the latch secures. You can clearly see the broken off piece of plastic in there. That is the piece that bumps the latch "home", when it breaks off, the latch half-catches but doesn't latch into place, thus requiring multiple slams and failure to latch.

The front lip and the lip under the rear bottom are both made of the same piece of molded rubber that is inserted under that larger piece with the hole and tube in it.

It is not plastic (the reason I believe it is just harder rubber is that you can stick your thumb Nail and it will grab into it a little) but it gets hard as it gets older and why it breaks off.

What it is made of you are seeing in the picture you described is where the lip broke off and in that particular picture I replaced both lips with epoxy putty.

Here is a site that has some pics of the separate pieces.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/389472-new-w123-door-strikers-latches-out-spec.html

Concerning the job I did in this thread with the hot glue it fixed the 2 problems I had on that side. Since it fixed the issue I did that I did not look further to see if there was any issues on the underside.
Also my Wife has the Car and lives 10 miles in another City at my other House and I cannot look to see if the rear underside lip is intact on the ones I did the hot glue repair on.

Concerning the side I fixed with the Epoxy Putty that was done over 1 year ago and although part of the putty has cracked off they are still working.

As I said these repairs could get your doors to close till you can do something better.

I did an google image search and now I am seeing a what is listed as a W126 Door Striker and it seems to have a white plastic insert. But that does not mean original W123s have the white plastic insert.
That is at this site: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1568388

There is a title W126 Mercedes Door Striker Rubber but no image is opening for me but that could be due to the dial up internet.

W123 Door Latch Strikers
 

That's the one ~ Mercedes redesigned it but it fits perfectly and is what the Classic Center sells you .

Before you go the !$! route, take the time to diligently search the junkyards, I never have any problems finding perfect ones in W126's.....

They're a bugger to get out unless you have some sort of impact tool .

Only take the rear ones, they're always less worn .

Ever since I broke my hip back in 2011 and had two operations ending up with a hip replacement my lust for stabling around in the Junk Yard carrying my Tool Box has pretty much ended.

Do you want a box of spares?

I pull them from every door of every car while I'm in a junkyard. I have a drawer full of spares now. You pay postage and I'll ship a bunch to you.

Thanks for the tips guys, we're contacting the vendor for these (who appears to sell them to all or most of the aftermarket brands) and asking them to correct the problems with the bracket. Doesn't mean they will, but it's worth a try. If they fix them for us, they'll be fixing them for everyone. We sell about 400 of each side annually with zero returns, but it's possible most of these are going to shops who are buying them just for the inserts.

Here's what we're reporting to the vendor:

- Bolt holes in bracket aren’t countersunk as deeply as OE, resulting in bolt heads protruding from bracket.

- Radius of bends at the base of bracket are too large, which distorts the countersunk hole so the bolt heads don’t seat properly. The bolt head hits the bent area before it seats.

- Radius of one of the top bends is too small, resulting in poor fit of insert assembly, inadequate support of plastic insert, and premature insert failure.

In the Case if My Car where the Door would not close let along lock it is not a good idea to take it to the Junkyard with the door unable to lock unless you leave someone in the Car to watch over the Car.
I mean people bring there tools there to get cheap parts. Not a good idea to have a Car with a Door that won't close in that environment.

Add: Poor quality plastic/rubber in the hard parts of the latch crumbles away prematurely. I had 4 of the Uro brand strikers in my SDL and every one of them died in the span of 1-2 years (even the doors that weren't used often). This is not only my experience by the way...there's a reason people say to shell out for the dealer part if you want it to last.

The factory parts lasted 30+ years. It's simply unacceptable for an aftermarket part to last 1/30 of that. I don't care how little it costs, free is too much for that. I'd love to have aftermarket parts that have some sort of life expectancy but replacing door strikers yearly is not something that's considered "normal" on any brand of vehicle.

^ Thanks, added comment about insert material longevity.

Can't Do It Anymore
 

I hear you about the injuries / pain and no more junkyards, me too although I'm still plugging away it it, nothing like I used to .

here's hoping Uro gets on the ball ~ all they need to do is actually LOOK AT the crappy junk they sell then tell their supplier : this is breach of contract, selling us defective goods, we're not paying until we get what we contracted for .

I did this as a buyer for the City of Los Angeles and it worked like a charm .

I was the -only- buyer who cared enough to do this simple thing .

It's actually too large. The contours do not follow the rubber inserts snuggly at all.

Amen to this... reading this comment on a screen really underscores the absurdity of the issue.

Uro -There's a well earned reason this board is dismissive of your products. Penny pinching through manufacturing tolerances and rubber quality is a pretty short game to play. Increase the price a few bucks if need be. Else, over the medium to long run, OEM becomes a more viable alternative.

Check out the photos on the other thread; the radius at the top of the "hat" is too small on one side, which creates the gap between the bracket and the insert. We're both thinking the same thing though, cheers!

It can be tough with items like this. We buy tooling and set up production for items that we develop directly from the original, that way we're the only source for a few years until the competition catches up and we have to lower our price to remain competitive. That turns into an amazing value for the end user - they're getting our higher quality part (with a warranty) at the going rate for the cheap no-name, no-warranty stuff.

Other times the market is already flooded with cheap aftermarket alternatives, and it's a loosing fight for us to enter with a new part that costs more than the competition, even if it's a better part. You have the folks who will pay any price for OEM, and the others who will only buy the cheapest parts. So at some point in the past it made more sense to just sell the same door striker that everyone else is selling, and compete on price.

There aren't a ton of buyers in the middle, but thanks to forums such as this and easily-found online reviews, people are learning that doing a bit of research and paying a little more can definitely be worth it. We're trying hard to reach these buyers with the new, exclusive parts we develop, as we transition away from commodity parts whenever feasible.

There has been a race to the bottom as far as parts are concerned. It's so bad for example that I have any alternator or starter bench tested at the store before bothering to install. Several have failed out of the box.

It's also a good idea to keep the core until certain that the new part is going to work. I learned this when Autozoo ultimately refunded money paid for a starter but had sent the core off. I ended up replacing their bad starter with one that didn't require a core. Live and learn.

I prefer paying a little more and not having to do the install repeatedly.

One of my relatives imports and sells crash parts. He can buy parts of varying qualities and says that some factories will build to whatever specs he wants.

Thank you but I prefer to deal with things using my own resources. As I mentioned I bought 2 new cheapie ones that did not last but about a year and developed the same issue.

But, that means I still have the 2 original Mercedes ones if I could remember where I put them.

Apparently the solutions are to buy the kits with the new rubber or buy the cheapie ones and remove the rubber and install them into the original Mercedes ones.

But, the focus of this thread was what to do right now if you have the problem and that is what I tried to have some answers for. My Wife who lives in another Town drove 3 days unable to close here door till she could bring it to me to fix.
It took about 30 minutes for me to see what was wrong gather the stuff and do the fix. Fortunately I had used the hot glue gun for some other repair a week previously if that had not happen I doubt if I would have thought to use it on the Striker.

Spoke with my Wife on the Phone about 30 minutes ago She said the repair is still working.

I just want to mention to everyone, I've seen threads where members are worried about parts becoming NLA.

I've certainly steered clear of URO parts in the past due to hearing of the rubber quality on the engine mounts and boots on the steering parts.

But they are trying. The attitude and professionalism they show in trying to resolve these issues might just be what ends up saving our cars as other manufacturers stop providing parts.

I have fits getting some parts for Honda PWCs which were discontinued in 2009. Turbos are NLA. IHI (the OE supplier) stopped making turbos and parts for the turbos used on the aquatrax line the same day honda announced they were discontinuing the line of PWCs

Finding an aftermarket supplier that is willing to make parts for a fairly niche market, and then communicate with those buyers and make an attempt to correct the issues with their products is phenomenal.

Concerning aftermarket suppliers. I will pick the W123 Mercedes as it has world wide distribution which of course is much greater then the Cars sold in the USA. That world wide sales is going to be what drives the aftermarket suppliers but it is going to be for parts that keep the vehicles on the road.
The problem with that is the what us are foreign owners might not have the cash to pop for the highest quality of parts and that means the aftermarket parts are not going to be the highest quality.

I appreciate your candor and transparency.

Here is some pics of the bottoms of the strikers that I used the hot glue on. Neither one of them has the rubber or plastic parts on the underside.

Notice in one of the picks the area that would normally be covered with plastic or rubber where the door latch hits and pushes the latch up inside of the square recess. In the first picture look at where he red arrow points.

On the rear one apparently door latch is not making the same contact as there is minimal marks on the metal.

Both are so far working like that.

Stripped Bolts in Door Striker
 

I know this is an old thread, but as I had to deal with it, here it is:

- my front pass. door has to be slammed to close, it's missing the rubber 'bumper' shown above
- I saw a u-tube by some scammer selling a 'tool' to overcome possible screw-stripping (no details and no comments allowed)
- I used an impact driver (5mm Allen) to loosen the bolts - the first went OK, the others stripped
- I bought a #3 extractor (and a 5/32" drill bit it called for) $5 each
- I drilled deep with this bit, and then used a 5/16" to remove the bolt head
- as the most friction was between the bolt head and the plate, the bolts then came out (sort of) easily

A couple of notes:
- drill the small bit deep! - once the head is off, drilling into the stub will cause it to unscrew backwards, fall into an inaccessible channel and rattle for ever
- drill in the center! - otherwise the extractor may jam itself into the threads or you won't the able to turn it if it's not centered

Pics: the bolts and the door jamb where you can see it is somewhat adjustable

Good to get those out. I drilled mine on my 126. Replacement screws were hard to find. I didn’t want to put the same MB ones back in after spending time drilling them out. I got some black ones made for two piece mag wheels online that fit well.

I noticed this part was posted on Thingiverse. I haven’t had the chance to print it and try it out but maybe it’ll come up on my 123.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3716040

I think this is the little part that needs replacing. I ended up buying some junkyard parts for the 126. URO is likely an option now.

Stuck Or Stripped Striker Screws
 

I found that any electric or pneumatic impact tool will instantly and easily remove every screw with no damage .