Steering Disaster
 

74 SEL. Driving- hear a bang and snap (loud). Steering seems wierd.
Limp home mostly straight. Get home- make a final turn- another noise.
As I'm parking (lucky, really)- steering wheel spins round and round doing
nothing.
Look under the car (but haven't lifted it yet).
Left tie rod is low under steering box. A silver piece of metal
(lower part of box?) is broken.
Oh- there was some dripping pwr. steering fluid.
Did a part of the steering box break- did the Pitman arm give way?
What are the possibilities?

The bolts holding the box to the frame wall, did they shear?

Any other ideas?

I have lots of ideas but you need to look under your car! If the steering box is still firmly attached to the frame wall, then you may have answered your own question. The pitman arm or lower part of the box may have broken. Unthinkable.

Thanks. I will be looking under the car today.
When I have more speciifics, I'll get back to you
all.

Whatever it was, good timing on your part. :D

Kind of like coasting into a gas station.

Turns out Joshol was right- the bolts holding the steering box to
the frame broke and the gear fell down basically creating all the chaos.
I'm in the process of getting the broken bolt bits out of the box and hopefully
reinstalling tomorrow.'
And yes. thank God I was cruising home when it happened!

Rick

I hope that Only the bolts broke. You'll need to carefully check the frame wall area for cracks. If so, it will have to be welded.
A regular maintenance item is to check the torque of those steering box bolts. It is around every 25,000 miles. (Guessing off the top of my head) It has happened to others. Do a search of the archives and you will find better info than I can provide.

Good luck with it.

Joshol - you were absolutely right. The three bolts holding the box
onto the frame broke, allowing the box to hang down and come off the
steering column shaft. I took the box out and was able to get
the remainder of the bolts out with an easy out. I will check the frame
wall for cracks
According to a local Mercedes mechanic, this is not uncommon to these
cars, as you also have suggested, so other owners should take note
and torque the bolts occasionally. I'm thankful it wasn't more serious.

We MB owners have to make sure the bolts are tight. They need to be regularly checked. (or is that checked regularly)

Ok, what is the torque setting?
 

I take pride in performing service when required. Can someone please tell us the torque setting?

Power Steering
 

:bulb: Hello;
This is a known problem on this model if it doesn't get re-torqued regularly on services. I was a shop forman at a Mercedes dealership between 1975-1980. We used to modify this. There was no recall ???? for this repair. Mercedes sells a neat kit to reinforce the member where the p/s box is mounted on. I do not remember the part numbers but if you talk to an older parts guy he may remember. By the way, the 114 and 107 chassis have the same problem. Good luck.

Wow, a repair kit to reinforce. I would be interested in that. I bought the subframe reinforcements for the 107 and had it welded into my 115 after I found a crack in the lower control arm tab.

Steve, Torque spec for which model?

107 Sl...
 

Torque specs for a 1985 500 SL Euro chassis 107 046. Thanks!

power steering reinforcement
 

Hi Joshhol;
I found some part numbers for your car (115 chassis). I have a copy of a long time friends' power steering repair invoice. Hope the part numbers helps a little bit.
115-620-17-16 reinforcement
115-626-15-11 front plate
115-460-05-10 coupling
007984-010020 screw (3)
910113-010001 nut (3)
201-990-08-01 screw (3)