Mine is a 124. Also did it at my local tech's shop, had someone to rely on when I got stuck. I had the cowl and dash apart and the box out in 5 hours yeasterday, spent another 5 today opening and closing the box. And an extra hour fabbing a plastic connector.

Just finished rebuilding and buttoning up the box today, new evap and heater box, new vac elements, waiting for drain hoses and one hard-to-find vac element. The evap is evacuated from the distributor, and my tech says, no whooshing sound upon removal of the seal plate, no install. Mine was fine.

We shot up the unit, and per my tech, will check it again on Friday before we snap the dash back in. Broke a strange plastic u-joint which controls the lower flaps. Don't try this at home, part hard to get. Fabbed a better-than original replacement out of zip-ties. I'll explain it to anyone interested. Otherwise, no drama, other than forgetting that lower flap connection and having to remove the new heater box and re-install.

My evaporator was a complete foul mess, not sure where the leak was. My heaterbox was pretty gone as well, not leaking but worth replacing. I cleaned the box out thoroughly and sprayed both the evap and heaterbox with Frigi-Fresh.

She just turned over 300,000. ALMOST did not feel like shelling out any more on this car, except I think it may hit 500K (harness, chain, trans, now evaporator all done) and it looks clean. And the alternative, a NEW car, was more bucks.

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Peter
1985 300TD 4-speed 212K
1992 400E 343K
2001 E320 72K