Replacing the steering damper was simple. Having the car on the lift made it very safe and convenient. Remove the plastic tray under the engine (Six 4 mm, I think, bolts). Look up in the middle of the engine area, and there it is between the two front wheels. Remove two easily accessible bolts (one regular size 17 mm wrench to hold the nut and the 17 mm lug nut wrench that came with the car to loosen the bolt) (note the right side only takes one wrench). Take out the old one and pop in the new one. Dramatic handling feel improvement, especially highway tracking and going over bumps while turning. The old one looked pretty new (probably about five years old from when the car was Starmarked), but it was VERY worn out, offering almost zero damping.

Self level suspension and power steering fluid reservoirs are located exactly as show above. Replacing the fluid and filters are as described elsewhere on this site. The only trouble I had was removing old the self level filter. Thanks Jim(?). He kind of popped it off the to-be-reused filter cap using a medium sized flat head screw driver. The replacement filter pops right on.

My niggling questions were addressed:

First, why does the gas filler tank (the part you can see when filling up the tank) have light corrosion on it, and what can I do about it? After taking a look, both the shop foreman and a club member let me know it's normal for a car of this age and neither would do anything about it. Replacing the fuel filter at the normal interval is more than sufficient to accommodate any minuscule flakes that make their way into the tank. To help insure that the gas cap plastic that touches the very top of the gas tank (and I think does the actual sealing) does not get messy or dry (causing the gas cap to actually fail), I'll probably replace the gas cap once a year and put a light film of bearing grease on the plastic part of the gas cap.

Second, what's the best way to clean and lubricate side rearview mirrors (at about 70 % to 80% of their widest travel (just where I like to set them), mine start to sound very un-lubricated)? Adjust glass so little 4D-40 hose goes to where the glass holder ball plugs into its socket thing (right in the middle of the mirror). Shoot a little in there being sure to catch any drips. Same little hose to shoot in a few drops of graphite liquid like white lightning. Nice and smooth now.

Thanks to everyone who helped me. The MBCA Washington Chapter folks were great. Special thanks to American Service Center for making their facility and extremely professional staff available.

Best,

Michael

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Michael

1988 300 SL (5 Speed)
1994 E320 Wagon
1997 C230