What do I have to replace/rebuild when my 300D leans too much in turns. The shocks have already been replaced with Bilsteins, thanks.

You may want to consider redoing the sway bar bushings and brakets, can get expensive. Your springs may be shot? But remember, this isn't a Porsche...

Yeah, all the W123's I've driven had lots of body roll. Maybe drive some other 123's to compare?

The 123 is a neat car to drive, but they are NOT sports cars. There is lots of body roll. The "zero camber offset" of the front suspension, with the sway bar high and attaching to the upper control arm was designed in attempt to keep the front camber in a position perpendicular to the road surface. The side effect of this approach was additional body lean.

I don't know of any other car with a front suspension design such as this. Does anyone know of one?

Ensure that your front end is tight, which I'll bet it is, and enjoy.

Good luck,

I gather that's the way it is, everything is tight in the suspension. I just bought a 300SD so I think I am subconciously comparing the two, finding minor faults in the W123 chassis where there is none. The W126 is just so much more refined that I should accept the W123 chassis for what it is. Fine.

had a very similar front suspension layout (in terms of geometry, that is -- the big difference was that the spring lay horizontally on top of the upper control arm and pushed against the firewall), along with a De Dion rear suspension with unusual details which made it require a lot of regular lubrication, etc., but they were really superb handling cars for their era -- some said, back then, that they were a worthy match for BMW as a real driver's sedan, except for the motor being a little weaker and the usual Lucas issues of the era.

I don't know whether the series of modern styled Rovers which replaced that one in the '70s (with a V8 option, even) had the same front suspension or not -- they went back to live axles in the rear. Citroens of that era also had a layout something like that.

I have to attest that for their time, the w123's suspension was perhaps the best out at the time. In 1979, the 300CD was hailed as one of the best handling/riding cars of all time. Though not perfect in retrospect, the w123 was a fine road car.

Good heavens! If a 123 rolls more than a 126 you're going to need scuff plates on the side mirrors. My 91 SE is as tight as they come and it rolls like there's no tomorrow. My consolation in the much more worn SD is that the skinny tires will lose lateral traction before the inside leaves the ground.

Sixto
91 300SE
87 300SDL
83 300SD

Part of the body roll on the 123s has got to be due to the fairly small front swaybar and a rear bar that is a joke. I don't know if larger replacements are available or if replacing the front bar would even be worthwhile/possible given its location but bigger bars will flatten it out in the corners. RT

__________________
When all else fails, vote from the rooftops!
84' Mercedes Benz 300D Anthracite/black, 171K
03' Volkswagen Jetta TDI blue/black, 93K
93' Chevrolet C2500HD ExCab 6.5TD, Two-tone blue, 252K

I *think* you can retrofit w126 sway bars, I'm not sure!

The body roll was designed in to fix a fault in the W115 chassis (along with a change from double wishbones to the C111 suspension). The W115's corner so flat and well that it is very possible to force the ouside front tire from the rim before the driver knows he/she is approaching the handling limit of the car -- actually, that the tire bead is approaching the limit.

By allowing more rear body roll (it's mostly back there, by the way, the inside corner lifts), some roll oversteer occurs, causing the driver the unload the front tire by reducing the steering angle.

You could always make or find a sports sway bar, but you will then risk running the tire off the rim without warning. It isn't possible to "recover" from this little event -- the car will travel the tangent of the turn, driver will have no control. Not funny, I know someone it happened to. Fortunately, there wasn't a tree or telephone pole in the path of the car.....

Peter

__________________
1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!

psfred,
Never heard of "running a tire off a rim". I always figured the tire would start to slide long before the forces got high enough to break the bead. I would also make the assumption that anyone wanting better handling already has 16-17" rims and low-profile tires that are designed with high side loads in mind. RT

__________________
When all else fails, vote from the rooftops!
84' Mercedes Benz 300D Anthracite/black, 171K
03' Volkswagen Jetta TDI blue/black, 93K
93' Chevrolet C2500HD ExCab 6.5TD, Two-tone blue, 252K

I've seen at least 3 accidents caused by "running a tire off the rim". All of these were in Corvairs taking turns too fast.

I also worked in a tire shop years ago and changed several tires that this happened to.

I haven't seen anything like this in recent years, but I am not working in a positon to see that sort of thing now.

__________________
Mike

2000 SL500 22,000 miles
1981 300CD 188,000 miles
1979 450 SEL 266,000 miles
2005 Cadillac CTS 25,000 miles

The W115 puts a tremendous load on the front outside tire, and remember it was designed for bias belts, radial tires were pretty exotic in 1966. Remember, too, that there is also a great deal of down force on the outside front tire, increasing the adhesion to the road. The combination can exceed the holding pressure on the bead, causing a blowout when the tire comes off the rim. Scary.

On the Corvair, the rear outside tire comes off when the tire tucks under too far and the rim hits the road. Stupid design, the original had a camber limiter on the control arm and the president of GM, Ed Cole, forced the design team to remove it because it cost $1.50 per car. Poor economy, as every GM exec with a teenager got one, and they nearly all wrecked them, some were killed. That problem was that the swing arm rear end could swing so far under that it would "jack" the rear of the car up -- when the rim hit the road, the car flipped, and since the door pillars were a single sheet stamping, the occupants were usually crushed when the top got mashed down to the seat backs.

The W108 has a swing arm rear end too, but there camber is limited by shock travel enough that it won't jack. Much to heavy, anyway, unlike a Corvair, plus the engine is in the front. However, under severe cornering, the camber can get negative enough to cause the rear tires to slide. Probably safer than a head on slide.

If you think a W123 rolls too much, check the rear sway bar bushing and links -- if one or both of the links are gone, believe me, you will have excess body roll in the rear! Same goes for the front sway bar, too.

Peter

__________________
1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!

Thanks, Peter, I'll check it out.