W124 heater fan, 4matic front shocks, shimmy

[farmbenz]

Why so many problems all at once - well you gotta fire all your cannons when you can!

1. Reading the threads on the heater fan on W124s I need to ask what is the correct rotation of the fan motor and what is the correct orientation of the fan blades (or squirrel cages)? My fan works OK but the air flow is useless.

2. Does anyone have or know of good solutions to worn out front shock absorbers on a 4 matic? The 4 matic is unique and different to the standard W124 and Mr Bilstein does not have a replacement. Originals are Sachs and not anything like as good as Bilsteins and very hard to get here. Any ideas out there?

3. This car has a terrible wheel shimmy (violent steering shake) at about 90- 100 kph (about 50-80mph) in some conditions. So bad that the mercedes star on the bonnet gets very blury! Tires are replaced, wheel runout checked, lower ball joints new, shock absorbers not great but, in my experience, not bad enough to cause this and at the very least the bearing function of the shock is OK.
Any one else had this problem? and got any solutions...

Thanks in anticipitation. Farm benz

[whipplem104]

The shimmy or violent shaking that you are describing is all to familiar to me.
The easy fix for this is actually to replace your engine mounts. I replaced everything on the front suspension on mine and still did it. I know that it has something to do with the front axles binding or being out of balance. New engine mounts changes the front half shafts angle, thus changing the condition.
I tried re-clocking the axles several times and had no luck fixing it completely.
The other thing I never had a chance to do before I got rid of the car was, I found a old merced Red fiche for a vibration that recommended replacing the suspension bushings and clocking them the wrong way to stiffing the suspension up.

Good luck, it scares the hell out of you when it does it.