Hello Rich M.
Any semicompetent service garage can swap the half shaft in under an hour.
Do you have the new/rebulit shaft for your 123?
You are right to not drive it, a broken shaft stub can do a lot of damage.

Have a great day.

I want to thank Bruce Bonds for the detailed instructions on the R&R of the hood release cable. My '85 wasn't quite the same but the instructions were close enough that I was able to figure out how to do it without breaking anything.

My cable wasn't broken but it was very hard to pull and I was worried that it might break. Having read a lot of horror stories here, I wanted to do something to mine. I decided to remove the cable, lubricate it, and put it back. This sort of maintenance is probably an "every 5 or 10 years" thing and probably is never done on most cars.

After removing the cable following Bruce's instructions, I hung it up and dripped oil into one end. When oil started to come out of the lower end, I knew that there was oil in the whole cable. I allowed the cable to hang and drip overnight.

While putting the cable back, I realized that part of the problem was that some PO had installed it with a "drip loop" in the cable, between the firewall and the pull-lever. The "drip loop" made it harder to pull -- the cable is actually supposed to run straight from the lever to the hole in the firewall (I didn't know this, of course). Between straightening the path and adding oil, my cable is now easy to pull and hopefully won't break at an awkward time.

Jeremy

__________________

"Buster" in the '95

Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .338,000 miles Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 113,000 miles My car
Santa Rosa population 176,762 (2022)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 627,762
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970

Jeremy, I'm glad that this helped someone. I have gotten so much help from the ShopForum. Thanks for the feedback.

__________________
Bruce

73 220D (never left Germany)
81 300D (totaled)
84 300D (Purchased '03, sold '17)
85 300SD (purchased 10/01/03)

I am having some trouble finding where the hood cable enters the firewall on a w124. Any w124 owners, feel free to chime in!

I have the unfortunate luck of the previous owner already removing the hood cable completely, and have no idea where the hood cable should pass through in the firewall.

In his instructions (in post #2), whunter mentions to pull the cable through the firewall but I couldn't find any photos online as to where this location is.

Any tips/photos of where I should pull the cable through will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

After much prodding and poking I have figured it out. The insertion point is on the driver's side, directly between the fuse box and the hood hinge, and quite difficult to gain access to. Long needle nose pliers, and a flexible grab tool were both essential in getting the cable positioned correctly as there is very little working room. The hood must be open at 90 degrees to do the job as well.

The pelican parts pictorial (which isn't too detailed) rates this as a 1 hour and 2 wrench job. I think this is greatly underestimated and this comes from someone who has professionally removed engines, transmissions, and rebuilt suspensions (etc). I would plan on at least 3 hours for this job from start to finish even with a full set of tools on hand, and that's if you already know how to quickly and safely remove the panels below the steering wheel without breaking anything!

I have posted photos below of the location of where the hood cable inserts as viewed from the engine bay and by after it enter's the passenger's cabin, so that anyone else doing this job has reference to it, as there was no photographic documentation here or on pelicanparts.

As everyone was saying above, the rubber grommet does need to be removed (unless you were to cut off the stub at the end of the cable and then re-attach it somehow once it enters underneath the dashboard.

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