Agreed. If you’re going to force the steering column lock you’re going to destroy something else like the wheel or the lock itself.

When I hear a w123 gets stolen, I wonder how the thieves got it. I suspect they got the key. You can drill or grind the little retainer pin.

There are a lot of nice steering locks left at the yards on picked apart cars. It’s a pain to salvage that part without the key. I wonder if you can request the key at LKQ? It looks like entire lock sets would be a nice item to put on the shelf if you intend to keep one of these cars long term.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles
97 C280 147k miles