Smaller Air Cleaner on '76 W114 280
 

I recently put my 1976 W114 280 sedan back on the road and I am in the process of shaking out any kinks or issues. Today, I had an problem where I had to lubricate the throttle linkage balljoints, so I had to remove the massive air cleaner. While it only takes two nuts to remove, it got me thinking about an alternative to get better access in the engine bay. I've seen smaller air cleaners on other M110/Solex equipped cars and I would love to fit one to my car.

Is there a specific small air cleaner that I can replace it with? It is worth noting that in the near future, I will replace my awful thermal reactor with a custom exhaust and some Euro headers. The Solex carb in my car runs very well right now, so I don't have any immediate plans to replace it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

The giant air cleaners Mercedes used during that era were due to the fact that Mercedes were sold all over the world. Some areas of the world were quite a bit dustier than others and if the air cleaner were any smaller the owner would be cleaning it or replacing it about once a month.

So they were built for the extremes. Before you put on a smaller one consider where you live. If you live in New Mexico or any of the dryer states prone to dust storms you may wish to retain the larger air cleaner.

Good point. I live in New York State, where it snows from October through April.

My 1st Mercedes was a 73 280 sedan with the (1st year?)M110 engine. Got car in Portland. OR then moved to Kingston, WA. It was a beautiful Ivory white, low mileage (72K), up optioned, with near flawless blue leather, earlier style ivory steering wheel, like used on the sports cars and also had a column shift. Original owner was an army colonel in AZ. On test drive, car had a bad miss and wonky handling in turns. Found a burned valve and broken RR shock. Fixed everything myself with help of local machine shop on the valve job. I approached my 1st overhead cam engine work cautiously, but wasn't so bad thanks to Haynes. Had the car from mid 80's through mid 90's. Had float/needle valve problems a few times on the 4 bbl carb and filter for the big air cleaner was sometimes hard to find and expensive. Eventually replaced air cleaner with an aftermarket 4 bbl cleaner. Did install aftermarket electronic ignition and most expensive repair was rebuilt transmission. Checked around and used shop in Portland recommended by Mercedes dealer. Removed/reinstalled trans my self and shop charged $500 for the re-build. Sold car when I moved to Olympia. Wish I kept it.

I just noticed you were talking about replacing the thermal reactor. I have been through this and here is something to watch for....

The reactor manifold on mine had a big round ending the big round reactor bolted to. So I could remove the reactor but there was nothing that was going to bolt up to that factory manifold. Except another reactor.

So I removed it and replaced it with a manifold from a wrecking yard. Watch out for the EGR valve. Some manifolds have it, some don't.

Then I found that the downpipe (the pipe leading from the end of the reactor to the exhaust pipe system) was different. So I needed not only the junkyard exhaust manifold but the downpipe as well.

Of course, yours could be totally different. So this is just something to check out before buying the parts necessary. If you are grabbing a manifold from a junk yard you might as well grab the downpipe, too.