Steering Disaster

[rix116]

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?

[joshhol]

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

[rix116]

Any other ideas?

[joshhol]

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.

[rix116]

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

[nglitz]

Whatever it was, good timing on your part.

Kind of like coasting into a gas station.

[Mr Maybach]

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.

[joshhol]

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?

[Steve Gutman]

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

[Mr Maybach]

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)

[joshhol]

Mr Maybach, thanks very much. I will file that info away. I think that reinforcement would work on Rix116. I recently rebuilt the front end on the 115 and had the p/s box and pump resealed. Hopefullly I wont need to tear into them for a long time.

Steve, the torque spec for fastening the steering box bolts is 70-80 Newton Meters. That however is for my 115. But, those two lineages share the exact same front end. The subframe for my 115 has a 107 part number. Rix116 might be different, but the power steering box in my 115 had a 116 part number prefix. It is a 300D loaded with all the options, so I guess they used the heavier duty box from the 116 chassis. Therefore I suspect his steering box is fastened by the same torque value.
I know yours is an 85, but they literally had the exact same front end for years with very minor modifications.