Hi peachy parts,

thanks to this wonderful forum I redid the whole front end of my 1984 300TD (non turbo) and the rear subframe. Invaluable good threads. Thanks to all.

I took everything apart, changed out all rubber bushings and mounts, links and rods, new steering damper and rebuilt steering housing, new balljoints and control arms. New bearings at the rear. And newer struts.
Last month I had a 4 wheel adjustment done.
In short; the lot!

The car doesn´t lean anymore and is way more quiet. Feels more "composed". Surprising how much reverberation (dash!) disappears with new bushings.

The wheel adjustment really helped getting the handling to a new level.
And here it comes; but still....

It can be hard work keeping the car centered on the road. Especially worn roads or even worse, with puddles.
Even a shallow puddle, on one side. yanks the car to one side. Scary at times.

None of my W123 wagons did this. All had worn steering housings, but were stable and reliable tanks. Still handling great on winding roads with fairly high speeds ( 110km/h 70mph).

Not this time. Having to correct my steering time and again, as if an external factor suddenly pushes the car to one side or the other. The steering feels non communicative and therefore I oversteer and have to correct that again.
Kind of, as if I became an old lady overnight...now where´s that mirror?

One note; I put stronger springs ( from a 300TDT) both on the front and the back so the car has a higher stance ( 1 1/2"), to deal with the bad gravel roads here in rural scandinavia. Also changed out the 15mm rear sway bar for a 17mm one.

I have two new Bilstein heavy duty front shocks, but not on the car as of yet.
The handling got better when I had more air in the tires ( of course, but I didn´t want to go back to the standard pressure)

Some thoughts:
-Rear subframe might have movement ( that might account for the weird changes in direction)
-Front sway bar is not as preloaded as before and results in wobbly handling ( but MB had north african 123s 2" higher than the euro models so...not sure that would affect it all so much)
- I can put back the wimpy springs on the front and install the HD Bilstein mofo´s just to check it out.

Has anyone experiences to share with handling on worn roads and or tips for getting the spirit of the car back in place?

cheers,

Jan.