W114 - rotors and wheel bearings, front.
 

I've installed more than my share of tapered wheel bearings in assorted cars over the years, do I really need to go buy a mag mount for my dial indicator and set the minuscule amount of free play the book calls for on these or can I
do what feels right and tighten them till there is no observable play and the washer behind the hold down nut still moves reasonably freely?

On a related note, please tell me it's uncommon for the runout on new rotors with perfectly clean mating surfaces to be out of spec? That was a hell of a lot of time consuming work to put a set of rotors and calipers on, they are Balo rotors for what that's worth.

Wolf, I've never used a dial indicator to set the bearings. I've always done it like you...by feel. In 24years on mine I've never had a problem. I just replaced them last year, along with more than half the mechanical parts on the vehicle....just because it hadn't been done in years. Also, I've never had a rotor problem, runout or otherwise. I would always buy the factory ones. I doubt that they would be out of tolerance. Don't know anything about the Balo ones. I've only replaced mine once a couple years ago. I also installed all new hoses and rebuilt the calipers. I use the stock factory pads too.

Balo is a trusted name, they are here http://www.balo.de/englisc/products.html
I love that maintenance parts are still so cheap for the W114, I swear I think they are cheaper than W123 stuff.

That's comforting I'm not alone in my thinking. This all started when i won a pair of re-man front calipers cheap on e-bay, seeing as mine were miss-matched. I bought rotors since there was a little evidence of shimmy the last few months I was driving it this winter, then noticed the setup with the rotor bolted to the hub, so I ordered bearings (SKF) since they were cheap.
Lot of labor to change all that stuff, it's a solid way to build it though. Very interesting. I used Textar pads which are Mercedes stock but minus the logo and half the price.

I have always put them on by hand and when I did use a dial to check them they were always pretty true.

I have never had any trouble adjusting the bearings by feel, and I have been adjusting them for about 40 years.

always done mine by feel, got several 10's of thousand of miles on mine , no issue.

Good good good. Thanks for the assurance guys.
Do they usually need to be re-adjusted after a run-in period?

Man previous owners suck. I glanced at the drivers rear pads awhile ago and they were great, I was rotating the tires and looked at the passenger side this evening and they were just about shot. Sure enough, in the pile of parts from the trunk when I got the car that I have in a sack still, there are one pair of shot pads, and one pair of new ones that were never installed. ~sigh~ At least the rotors don't have much of a lip in the back.

My trusty old Haynes manual confirms that you can do it by feel (as we're accustomed to doing on any number of various assemblies on our cars.) If you've done it before on another car it should work out without any problems on your 114 Wolf.

I have on occasion jacked up a wheel to check for play after doing the bearings , not because I thought I find some, but because I wanted to prove another myth wrong. If you do it right, you should be good to go

Melted is right on. It won't hurt anything to jack it up and re-check for self satifaction. If you've done it right (which I am sure you will) it should be the same as when you originally adjusted it.

Success I suppose, no more pulling, no pulsing, brakes straight. Happy day.

Rear pads tomorrow, if I can pull the crusty things out and compress the pistons(without the right tools as usual).

As an aside MB labeled brake paste looks suspiciously like anti-seize. But it comes in nifty little blue and white packets.

Wolf, have you replaced the brake hoses? On my 250S I had a hose (front right) collapse on brake release and it wouldn't completely release, causing a pull to the right. I checked everything (all OK) and someone finally told me to change the hoses. With age the walls soften and they collapse on release. I changed them and all was well after that. I've now also changed all of them on the 280C.

I did change them, had to take the drivers side hard line off with the rubber and remove it on the bench, still nearly destroying the hose end fitting. I'll never understand why those things have to be so brittle.

I put a master cylinder on it right after I bought it as well, it had that sinking feeling. I have a sneaking feeling there is fluid sitting in the booster, but it's probably been there for years. One day.