I scoured the archives on this but couldn't find a clear answer.

I was just at a junkyard and there's 1976 450SEL there with four nice 14x6.5 bundt cakes. Will these fit on a '81 300td?

I looked for the ET (offset) number on one of the junkyard wheels but couldn't find it. I did measure the backspacing roughly (distance from inner hub surface to inner edge of rim), and it is 4.5 inches.

Thx in advance!

I may have just answered my own question using the Tire Rack website. They give the same wheel specs for both cars in a hypothetical upgrade to 15" wheels. I used the ASA Type 15 wheel as a comparison in 15x7 size. Anyway, they show wheels for both cars have a 5x112 bolt pattern and +23mm offset.

Anybody care to weigh in here?

M-B did provide a 14" ET 23 or 25 Bundt Cake on some of the long wheelbase cars of the '80s, but those built in the '70s generally measure just a hair less than ET 30 (They weren't required in Germany to mark the offset in those days). I have had some ET 30 6 1/2" versions from a '70s car on my '85 300TD and can report the following:

If you run them with 205/70 tires, you should have no clearance problems at all, front or rear.

If you put on 225/60 tires, as I did, you are likely to find that under some extremes of cornering forces, the flexing of the sidewall of the tire will result in light contact between the tire sidewall just outside the rim edge and the rubber boot on the tie rod end on the front end. I have read others' postings which claimed more than occasional light contact, bad enough that the boot was torn (there are big variations from one brand to another in actual tire width for what are nominally the same size, especially when you get some of those tires with big letters molded into the sidewalls to no good purpose), but that didn't happen to me. I put 6mm spacers in to solve the problem, but eventually switched to '85 AMG 15" X 7" ET 16 rims (with 225/50 tires) on the front and saved the wide bundt cakes for the rear end. I've got enough of the AMG rims off EBay to switch over completely once I wear out all 4 225/60 X 14 Michelin tires.

Someday I've got to find a buyer for all these old 14" Bundt Cake rims I have around - 6 6" and 4 6 1/2".

Thanks, Fimum. I was planning to stick with the 70 series tires anyway because I want to keep a fairly tall profile for better mpg (though the corner-carver in me would prefer 60-series tires for looks and handling).

I'd appreciate further feedback on whether these wheels will fit. This junkyard is having a half-off sale this weekend so these wheels will be a great deal for me. The standard bundt cakes on my wagon are in really poor shape cosmetically, but these junker wheels are nearly perfect and would make a nice affordable upgrade.

yes, they will fit with no issues

sorry it took so long to answer your question

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Thanks, Luke! I was hoping you'd chime in. Sounds like I have a new set of wheels (assuming they are still there come Saturday!).

I'll probably be ordering the new tires from you guys. Any idea if I could go up to a 215 width tire on these wheels and still have enough clearance?

Thanks again!

215 or 225 would be no problem

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For posterity's sake, yesterday I measured the backspacing on my wagon's stock wheel and compared it to the measurement I made on the 450 SEL wheel. The are identical at 4.5 inches. What this means is that the extra half-inch width of the 450 SEL wheel was added to the outer half of the wheel, which means it shouldn't cause any tie-rod intereference problems in front.