If it was magnesium, there would be nothing left of it in the salt!!

__________________
Grumpy Old Diesel Owners Club group

I no longer question authority, I annoy authority. More effect, less effort....

1967 230-6 auto parts car. rust bucket.
1980 300D now parts car 800k miles
1984 300D 500k miles
1987 250td 160k miles English import
2001 jeep turbo diesel 130k miles
1998 jeep tdi ~ followed me home. Needs a turbo.
1968 Ford F750 truck. 6-354 diesel conversion.
Other toys ~J.D.,Cat & GM ~ mainly earth moving

There is a yard off I24 in Manchester. Exit 111 or 114? I think its European parts. He had multiple 126s a while back. I'm cheap so have only bought a window regulator from him.

Also, see if European Imports 615-848-0046 in Murfreesboro still has any. They used to have a car or 2 sitting around. They have a good reputation but I've gone back to doing my own work.

Edit: I may have to go west & may be able to meet up with Daw in my Ram. It will be 3 weekends at least.

__________________
85SD 240K & stopped counting painted, putting bac together. 84SD 180,000. sold to a neighbor and member here but I forget his handle. The 84 is much improved from when I had it. 85TD beginning to repair to DD status. Lots of stuff to do.

Several years ago on my '82 240D, I used three jacks to do my first trailing-arm replacement. I was able to lower the trailing-arm, differential, and left side of the crossmember. Just enough to clear the outer trailing-arm bolt and relieve spring tension, so I didn't need a spring compressor. I didn't remove the whole crossmember, which made reassembly much easier.
The biggest hassle might be getting the crossmember-bolt, out as they're often rusted/seized to the crossmember bushing sleeve. I got lucky on my car.
At the time I didn't know about Pick-N-Pull, and none were in the immediate Alexandria area anyway, so I paid $150 for a good used arm with good bushings and bearing from my local indie MB parts-place. They had several in the back-room to inspect and choose from. Otherwise, I might have had to extract a used one myself at a salvage-yard, and many yards don't allow one to bring in jacks, so being my first trailing arm replacement, it worked out OK. The job took most of a Sunday to complete.

Happy Motoring, Mark

__________________
DrDKW

THANKS, for using the small "d" in my userid.

Here are my thoughts --- you could leave the parts car on the "borrowed" trailer and park it at someone else's house; strip it; then take it to the scrapyard --- they could unload it for you.

Another thought --- evaluate what you need; drive down
here with your tools and I'll help you pull whatever you
need; if you don't know what you need, just come down
here and pull everything you "might" need. I promise you
will faint from my in person prices. Checkout what some
other forum member have said about me at this link.


You might even get a chance to see my other diesels.

__________________
daw_two
Germantown, TN

Links:
Sold last car --- 05/2012 1984 300D Light Ivory, Red interior
Cluster Needles Paint
New Old Stock (NOS) parts

Past:
3/2008 1986 300SDL "Coda"
04/2010 1965 190D(c) "Ben"
& many more

Seem there was a thread about a year back, where there was this discussion about the aluminium arms whether they fit or not.

I don`t remember any real definate answer to it.

I`ll do some searching around to see what I can find. 10-23 (stand by).

OK, finally found the thread. "Upgrading w123 Rear trailing arms to Aluminium w126 ones possible"?

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=246721

It was back in march 09, so a little over a yr ago.



Charlie

__________________
there were three HP ratings on the OM616...

1) Not much power
2) Even less power
3) Not nearly enough power!! 240D w/auto

Anyone that thinks a 240D is slow drives too fast.

80 240D Naturally Exasperated, 4-Spd 388k DD 150mph spedo 3:58 Diff

We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics. Funny how that works

Hi,No big deal. I grabbed one at the local junk yard a year or so back for a friend on the western slope. It cost about $30.00 and some shipping.It wili take you a couple of hours if you change the whole cornor. That would be the easiest.

Update
After some promising Craigslist leads 2hr away in Atlanta the Craigslist flakeout factor kicked in and none of the sellers materialized.
Possible find for $100 at a junkyard in Dalton 30 minutes away. They insist on bringing the old one in to confirm a match which actually seems like a reasonable idea.
Thanks for the leads in Manchester/Murphesboro that's "only" 1.5hr away.
It would be nice to go check out daw_two's stash but 6hr away is impractical if I can figure out something closer. That's pretty much adding 12hrs to the job.
Im due to leave town Monday so the carcass will have to sit till I get back.
If I could find one for $30 I'd be very happy.

The aluminum discussion is interesting. Are they painted or natural metal colored?

__________________
84 300SD 274K
38K miles on flatplate heat exchanger and various diesel/veg blends. prior to that 4K miles on unheated veggie blends with kero and DinoD.

The odd thing about this is that it is always the right rear..I had the same problem and the right one is all rusted out and the left one is near perfect.

__________________
83 300CDTurbo 307,000
2005 Honda Element 266,000
56 Nash Ambassador Country Club Special 34,000(under restoration presently)

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/showthread.php?t=125099

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!
After three days of wrestling with putting this auto drain contraption on my air compressor I finally got to roll my sleeves up and go at this.
Including trips for tools after about 8 hrs I got it 95% out without a single swear word.
Then I hit a wall with getting the parking brake line loose. I cant figure it out. Ive taken off the return spring. Ive taken out the adjuster bolt. I cant get enough slack to get the line loose even with adjusting the star adjuster all the way out.
How do you get it apart from the wheel end of things?
Also one bolt of the Trailing arm needs just 1/4" more clearance to be able to get out past the driveshaft. So I started dropping the rear end onto a jack and the compressor gadget blows up again.

__________________
84 300SD 274K
38K miles on flatplate heat exchanger and various diesel/veg blends. prior to that 4K miles on unheated veggie blends with kero and DinoD.

The right side of the car in the countries where we drive on the right side of the road always gets more salt and dirt and so rusts worse.

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Closest to the gutter, more water/salt/slush spray etc.... Under my 300SD the body is more rusted (was) on the passeneger side than drivers side, for that same reason I suspect. It has all been worked on/repaired, but it was a lot worse on that side, almost nothing on the drivers side.

__________________
-diesel is not just a fuel, its a way of life-
'15 GLK250 Bluetec 118k - mine - (OC-123,800)
'17 Metris(VITO!) - 37k - wifes (OC-41k)
'09 Sprinter 3500 Winnebago View - 62k (OC - 67k)
'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
'01 SL500 - 103k(km) - dad's (OC-110,000km)
'16 E400 4matic Sedan - 148k - Brothers (OC-155k)

Replace the air compressor auto drain contraption with a ball valve...

There is a silver pin on the central brake cable equalization lever.
Remove the cotter pin and push the pin out.
Dismount the lever.

The brake cable should now be off..


Have a great day.

My one and only trailing-arm job was on the left/drivers side of my first 240D. The used replacement I selected was complete and in good condition, except that they had torched the brake cable. I unhooked my good cable from the equalizer-link, and pulled the clip to release it's sleeve from the tunnel-mounted bracket.
Then I removed the rusted trailing-arm unit, complete with the cable, and transfered that good cable to the replacement unit outside the car. The cable is secured to a tiny round pin inside a link attached to the tiny parking-brake shoes. You need enough slack to swing that link out far enough to clear and drop the pin. You'll probably need to disassemble that side's parking-brake. It's a real pain if, like mine, the hub is still in the way. Much easier if you've already pulled the hub because you had to replace the bearing.
By the way, I didn't use an air compressor.

Happy Motoring, Mark

__________________
DrDKW

I have a matched aluminum set (yes, both)
and
one steel trailing arm (passenger side)

from the w126 donor cars --- stripped those trailing arms off before the cars went to the scrapyard this week.

I have a road trip planned to Atlanta, GA in the next couple of weeks. I'd be happy to meet you in Roswell, GA or someplace in between.

__________________
daw_two
Germantown, TN

Links:
Sold last car --- 05/2012 1984 300D Light Ivory, Red interior
Cluster Needles Paint
New Old Stock (NOS) parts

Past:
3/2008 1986 300SDL "Coda"
04/2010 1965 190D(c) "Ben"
& many more

Back to the battle to try this. It doesn't look like mine has this pin though if you are talking about the middle contraption that connects the two separate cables to each back tire. Ive already threaded out the adjusting screw. Is there a place in the front somewhere where I can disconnect the main cable to get more slack?

Also am I doing something wrong in that Im having to fiddle with trying to move the driveshaft/rear end assembly to get this bolt out? Im going to wrangle up some more jacks to try to manipulate the different parts separately.

Believe me I pulled that autodrain nonsense off the compressor last night. Put the conventional drain back.

daw_two hopefully this project won't come off the rails so bad that I have to stay disassembled for weeks. The goal is to have the old one out and pick up the new used one today. Wish me luck.
I think we would all be curious how the aluminium and steel ones compare when weighed on a scale. Many in the performance world consider "unsprung" weight in the driveline to be like a 5 to 1 equivalent to overall weight in the vehicle. As in: remove 1 pound from the driveline is like removing 5 pounds of weight from the car.

__________________
84 300SD 274K
38K miles on flatplate heat exchanger and various diesel/veg blends. prior to that 4K miles on unheated veggie blends with kero and DinoD.