DieselHead,

I have installed a few of these on cars when I was importing grey market W123's. I installed them on my daughter's 240D, and my two sister's 230E's, and then my 190E (now my son's car).

I found the light assemblies I got were usually slightly damaged. They were harvested from the cars I imported, and after the DOT papers were done, I would take the new US assemblies out and replace them with the illegal German ones. When the car was equipped with the vacuum system as a German model, it came with the aiming switches and vacuum lines installed so I would ask that they not be removed.

There is a mechanical setup inside the headlamp volume that integrates the vacuum and the mechanical aiming systems. For some reason the ball and socket joints in this system were usually not engaged. They are white nylon like material, and if you have long agile fingers you can snap them back together. I have fingers that were not so good at this task, but I managed to fix all of them. Until I did that, the aiming system was not completely effective.

I have not done this for nearly fifteen years, the 240D was done last but it does not have the vacuum system hooked up. I believe you have some mounting flexibility to help with this aiming issue, but I do not recall exactly. The 240D is in Upstate New York, or I would go out and check.

Hope this helps, Jim

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Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)