It looks like the wheels that came with my 250C are not the correct one. The hole in the middle of the wheel is too small, preventing the wheel from seating against the hub. Nice.

I have attached a picture of the wheels. They are stamped 1154001302 and are 5.5 X 14. I assume 115 wheels will not fit the 114.

Can anyone tell me what type of wheels I should look out for? Will Bundt's from a 123 fit? I would prefer to keep the painted hubcaps, but am open to any suggestions.

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Rust and caked on goop are pretty common problems on these rims. A quick clean-up with a wire wheel brush on the rim centers and the mounting area does the trick.

ALL 114/115's share the same rims. 123's are the same center size and lug pattern.

Yep, try a little elbow grease like sandpaper the inside edge where it fits too snug thats what I'd do.

And lesser known fact regarding 14" painted hubcap rims shared among 114/115's and 123's:.. at one point (circa 1979/80?) MB went from steel to alloy with plane-jane painted hubcap rims yet both were painted black, entirely interchangable and lookin near identical. Gotta scratch em with a knife to know which is steel or aluminum alloy. Excellent tip for painted hubcap fans - look for cheap alloy rims on later version junkyard 123's for performance upgrade at replacing the earlier 100% steel rim version.

Thanks. I'll give that a shot tomorrow.

Interesting. The spare fits fine, and it has the same stampings as the road wheels.

I took some coarse emery cloth to the inside of the wheel and cleaned it up. works fine now. Thanks everyone.

A bit of grease between hub and center-hole will help to prevent rusting and sticking, and if you're reluctant to test for alloy rims by scratching paint, I'd suggest a magnet.

Apparently the base alloys from the W123 are a popular upgrade for the earlier hubcap cars. When I attended last fall's Pagoda SL meet with my '82 240D, one wag suggested I keep an eye on my car or it might end up on cinderblocks!

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

I'd suggest using "Never-seize" instead of just grease. Grease tends to fling itself all over the inside of the hubcap and then dripping down the wheel when it gets hot.

Mark, whats impressive is that MB went to alloy rims for hubcap cars without saying a word and hiding em under black paint, gotta admire them for this. My opinion it's one of the best kept secrets of MB lore. Most owners of alloy hubcap rims dont even know they've got em.

Glad to hear you're still paddling around in the 240D. And give my regards to the pagoda people, extreme cult classic cars are little pagoda SL's.

Yeah, I guess I'm a pagoda people too, as I briefly owned a '67 230SL inherited from my Dad. Unfortunately, by the time the car was passed to me in 1990, it was a barely-running, rusted-out basket-case. Still I got almost $5000 for it from someone desparate for a Pagoda, and a real learning experience!
As for the disguised hubcap alloys, I learned about them at the auto shop I used to work in, long before I owned a W123.

Another example of Mercedes doing it their own way was the dashboard trim in the '66 Fintail 230 I used to own. Being the cheapest six-cylinder Mercedes, that car shared the body, interior and brown-plastic trimmed dash with the four-cylnder cars. However, my 230 glovebox door was still real wood, but stained and varnished to match the brown plastic dash trim. I suppose since Mercedes made so many wood Fintail gashboards at the time, they prefered to make a sturdy wood glovebox door disquised as plastic, instead of a flimsy plastic door (like the flimsy plastic glovebox door on my 240D!). It's probably the only car I've ever seen that had real wood made to look like plastic, instead of plastic made to look like real wood!

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

You can tell the Aluminum hubcap wheels by the grey circle painted on them. The raised section of the hub just outside the lugbolt holes will have a grey circle if the wheel is aluminum.

Most (if not all) late W123 240D aluminum wheels are 5.5 X14.

The W108 V-8s and the late W123 300Ds have 6.0 X14 wheels.

I recall the 6.0" wheel has a dashed grey circle.

The hubcap clips are also different for the aluminum wheels.

W113 pagoda freaks cherish the 6.0 width wheel, as that is the original size.

Also, ANY 14" bundt style alloy wheel will work on your 250C.

I ran both 6.0 and 6.5 bundts on my 250C for years, currently have a set of 6.5 X 14 period set of BBS "wire" style alloys, but am thinking about returning to the classic hubcap look...........

Jim

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14 E250 BlueTEC black. 45k miles
95 E320 Cabriolet Emerald green 66k miles
94 E320 Cabriolet Emerald green 152k miles
85 300TD 4 spd man, euro bumpers and lights, 15" Pentas dark blue 274k miles