Jamie - I believe that self adjusting is a bit of a misnomer. What happens in that later box is that there is a spring loaded plunger pushing against the working piston so if there is some slop you can't feel it. Generally the box can develop lash between the gear teeth on the working piston and the teeth on the pitman shaft as well as the relationships between the other internal parts as well. Adjusting the screw on top of the box reduces the working piston to pitman shaft lash much like moving the pinion gear closer to the ring gear in a differential to reduce lash. Some years back I was still active in the MB club. One of the really good things about our section was we regularly had a factory tech rep come in to update us on the new products and allow us to ask service questions. I did happen to ask about steering box slop and the fellow said it is very rare for the LS90 series box to wear out. He pretty much said that if one was to follow the manual and reset the running torques while replacing all the soft parts it would constitute a rebuild. And yes I remember he seemed to indicate that one had to be sure to replace the thrust washer on the pitman shaft adjusting screw as well. Without the set of special tools to hold the various assemblies while setting the running torque it would be pretty tough to those adjustments, so if adjusting the lash with the adjusting screw doesn't bring things to a situation that you can live with then probably the best thing to do is to go to the bone yard and get a steering box off a lower mileage car. They typically go for about a picture of Ben Franklin. Make sure that you center the steering box working piston if you do a swap when you go to mate the input shaft on the box to the steering shaft coupling. To make a copy of the 116 589 621 00 centering screw I just took the appropriate thread pitch bolt and turned a point on it with a lathe.
Barry > Its true the box is somehow self adjusting in the W126 (from 08/81, so > MY 1982), but the manual still states that adjustment is possible. _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
