Your hood can go STRAIGHT UP! (Secret hood latch...)
 

My wiper mechanism is needing replacement and I stumbled upon a NEAT feature of at least a W126 Mercedes...

There are "release levers" on the hood hinges, which when released, will allow the hood to open to a straight up vertical position - then you can more easily service items at the base of the windshield like the wiper mechanism...

W123, W126...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRRx98t4jjk

W124...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8z2_e1OCbI

Congratulations! I'm almost positive that the majority of the members and MB enthusiasts knew this already though. PS: you should add a signature to your profile, it will help others identify the car you are working and enable everyone to offer you helpful advice more readily without having to ask what car you are working on.

Actually I did a search and did see other posts here mentioning this... But this is SO GOOD, I thought I would mention it again.

definitely one of my favorite features. with the way the grill hangs down off the front of the hood on MBZ it comes in handy for just regular things as well... Oil changes, valve adjustments and so on.

I did that to my 400E when I bought it last week and the seller was impressed. I think that took a few hundred off the price ;)

I recently changed ball joints on a W124 - the owner was shocked and amused the same time when I lifted the hood vertical (had to remove the struts to change ball joints)

the guy told me the counter person at autozone was about to get serious problems as he tried to wrestle the new battery in place.

Scree you guys and my 115. I hit me head all the time.

I only buy cars where I can upen the hood to vertical. That includes Benzes and Volvos.

I was overjoyed when I discovered that on my W210. I didn't know how in the world I was going to get to those spark plugs in the back part of the engine...not to mention the crank sensor, oxygen sensors and other such things.

One word of caution: if you are in a garage (or anyplace with something overhead), be double sure to hold the hood and watch it after you release the catch to be sure it will clear. I've come close to damaging the hood and had I not been holding it, it would have hit.

Good luck.

I think I impressed all of the honda bunch at a gathering when I propped a civic 98 hood to vertical service position (it also has a position for it).

Needed to fish out my phone lying on the rear cross member.

I re-engineered the hinges on the R107 (83 380SL) to lift all the way. Took some noodling but definitely worth it.

and all Citroens since 1955

Do you think the OP knows about the heated air and the center vents . . . or my favorite, dimming the cluster with a twist of the . . .

Is that because they are always in the shop ;)

W116 unfortunately doesn't go vertical but still leaves plenty of space to work when open, and if you really need more space, the hood comes off easily.


As to impressing sellers of cars, probably the most ridiculous one to me was when I went to look at what turned out to be a POS 190D 2.2 with a manual, I went around and used the key to open the trunk and that guy says, "Wow, so that's how you open the trunk."

He was probably about the most clueless car owner I have ever met, he said that he bought the car from the owner of a car dealer but the owner of the dealer did not sell it though the dealer, he sold it as a private sale. That was probably about the worst shape 190 I have ever seen, looked like the guy at the dealer painted it with house paint. I'll bet the dude way overpaid on it cause he wanted a decent amount of money at first. The seller had originally said it was running but a few days before I went to look at it, he updated his craigslist post to say that he didn't know why but it wasn't running and lowered his price. When I got there, he had the battery on a charger and my friend and I tried to start it with no luck. it sounded like the motor tried to come on but the engine did not turn over at all. I opened the hood and the first thing I checked was the upper radiator hose. Sure enough, the plastic neck broke and the engine drained all of its coolant and died a terrible death.

Most ironic thing about this:
He told us he bought the car because he heard Mercedes diesels were reliable and he needed a reliable car to take with him to UTI where he would study to become an automotive technician. :rolleyes: