rumor has it that Marshall wrote: > Tom Hargrave wrote: > > Richard, > > > > His may actually have shocks, not the self leveling suspension. I > > don't know if MB sold wagons everywhere with the suspension they > > sold in the states. > > > > Euan, > > > > If you do have conventional gas shocks then they are likely the same > > parts as on the sedan. Also, there is no problem with purchasing > > parts from the manufacturer. Bilstien shocks are the same quality as > > the MB branded shocks. > > ALL wagons (at least thru the mid 90s) had self leveling suspension! > They were NEVER manufactured any other way and there were NO > provisions (either springs or shocks) for converting them to > conventional suspension. People have tried and NONE of the > conversions I know of was considered even tolerable by anyone that > had driven a car with the system working as it was designed to work.
I live out in amoung the hill(billy)s in Missouri. There are _very_ few Mercedes cars around. So I have my own collection of parts cars since the nearest salvage yard that "sometimes we have a few of those" is about 70 miles (110 km) away. These cars are visible from the road, so I regularly get visitors - including the 3 other folks in the county that have MB diesels. One day a fellow (from the next county over) stopped in. He was in a W123 300TD and was interested in selling it. Well, I could use another wagon, so I let the conversation continue. The rear suspension looked low, so I asked about it. Turns out he had removed the original "shocks" 'cause it "rode really rough like" and installed some gas-charged thing that he claimed was sold as a proper upgrade (!!!??!!) to the original system. *chuckle* "Still ride funny, though." he said. My reply along the lines of, "uuuhh - the original was an automatic height adjusting system...." I felt sorry for him, but I still managed to talk him out of selling me the car! *whew!* -- Philip, ever so grateful for this list!!! It makes me look smart... and that's no small task.
