(cross post from diesel forum)

Looking through the service manual, there are a couple dozen steering box's for these car's with one difference or another.

One says Degraded responce or something like that which sounds like variable ratio steering, late w126's I think it was. Some say Automotik Play Compensation, something most of us probibly wish for, did it work?
Then there is the issue I wonder about right this moment, early boxes had external steering stops only, middle's seem to have external AND external(mine is one of these), and late were internal only. In that last trio there are also some, the two latter, with a different ball position on the pittman arm, there not interchangable it seems.

So what did I do? Got a steering box from a pretty low mile w123 gas car, an early one, which is external steering stops ONLY according to the numbers(though the box's part numbers match the one's on my car, some other markings are different though). The box from the early w123 has NO internal stops.

Now, I have external stops, I can swap over my pittman arm, any reason my external stops will not be suffecient?

It's staggering the variety of stuff MB has, dozens of steering boxes, springs, steering parts, and god only knows what else. One of you enlightned old fellows please tell me all is well so I can stick this thing on tomorrow...
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One more Radar Lover gone...
1982 VW Caddy diesel 406K 1.9L AAZ
1994 E320 195K