Hello,
I am in the process of restoring my 1981,W123,230TE estate (Chassis no-12328322005307). At the present I'm working on the back axle/suspension.
But first a little background, since I first acquired the car, the self-leveling facility has never worked, although the rear suspension has never drooped or been hard. As the restoration has progressed I have found that both oil pipes(feed& return) are holed (new ones are ready to be fitted)+ the valve lever had been disconnected, on removal of the suspension, the struts and pressure spheres contained oil. On examination of the valve to fully understand how it works( My Haynes manual tells next to nothing) there appears no way that oil pressure from the struts/spheres can return to the reservoir tank.My conclusion, is that the previous owner, rather than pay for an expensive repair altered the valve to retain pressure in the struts.Could anyone please supply me with a drawing of the valve and components, so I can check my assembly also a detailed explanation of its workings.
Thankyou

Is there a plug in one of the ports on the valve? There HAS to be a return line or the pump will howl, it runs all the time.

If there is, you are missing the return line.

Peter

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!

Thankyou Peter,
There is a plug on the main body but Ithink it is just a machining plug. Looking at the valve as it would be fitted on the car, the main drilling from the feed comes in bottom rear.Travel forward ,at the front inside there is a drilling to the disc chamber, from there it travels upwards through an unsprung check-valve, past a sprung check valve/ pressure relief (whose direction goes from chamber to strut drilling).At the top of the main drilling are the strut pipes to the rear, bleed nipple to the offside and a plug above.The return is only to the chamber.

I have four pipes connected to my valve - two that run parallel with each other from the front end of the chassis to the valve and two that disappear upwards into the area of the spheres. In both cases one of these is the flow and the other the return.

If you call into your local dealer and ask them to call up the pipe configuration off the CD-ROM, they will show you on screen how the pipes fit - they may even print off the exploded diagram (Merecedes Benz UK at Milton Keynes usually do).

Steve

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1987 230TE (W124/M102) RH Drive 4-speed auto, 7 seater.
Some days you are the bug; some days you are the windshield

Hello Steve,
Thankyou for your reply, that post was posted some time ago,and at that time Hazen got in touch and sent me a file from his manual covering the full system. My rear suspension is now all piped up and just awaiting oil, but that part is still someway down the line.

Thanks again David