Previously I had a stuck ignition barrel in my 280SE. After 5 hours of trying, I finally got it to move, allowing me to get the car out of the way. At the time, I was feeling pretty confident that the right tool would get the ignition tumbler out no problem. As it turns out, my optimism was misplaced.
The first issue was getting the tool to grip the collar. The collar just screws off, but I could not get a grip on it. I found a cheap tool on AliExpress that seemed to do the job. However, a couple of days before it was supposed to arrive, my order was cancelled due to lack of stock. This happened a second time with another vendor. As they sat in a pending state for a week or so before this happened, I figured I would order two more from different vendors and cancel the second one once the first shipped. They shipped on the same day so I have two.
The tool actually worked quite well, in that it gripped the collar and I was able to put quite a lot of pressure on it. I think in normal circumstances it is a good addition to the toolbox. I’ll sell the second one though. It still didn’t move the collar.
To make sure I wasn’t missing something fundamental, I went down and extracted the ignition tumbler from my 420SEL parts car. Using the same methods as I had on the W116, I had it out in four minutes. At this point I was stumped as to how I was going to get the collar off. It seemed removing the entire steering lock was going to be necessary.
I picked up a used steering lock from a friend at the Eastern Creek show. It’s the proper late W116 unit, identical to the one in the car. Again, I tried getting the collar of this steering lock and I was off in minutes. It also allowed me to experiment with the other ignition barrels I have, and I confirmed the W126 unit does not work in the late W116 steering lock. It’s about 1mm too big. They look identical, but they are not.
As I had the key in position 1, it should have been possible to remove the steering lock without major surgery. Position 1 allows the locking pin to be pushed in, which lets the steering lock slide out of the jacket tube. There is also a clamping fitting that has a bolt to hold things tight. The picture below shows the bolt removed and the locking pin. I had to use a small mirror to see all this even with the instrument cluster removed.
I was able to remove the electrical connector and push in the pin without difficulty. The challenge was getting the steering lock to clear the dashboard. With the collar, tumbler and key in place there was not enough clearance. I even unscrewed the bolts holding up the steering column and let it drop a couple of centimeters. This allowed some movement, but I had perhaps 2cm out of 10 clear.
At this point, I didn’t think my current approach was really going to work. The second steering lock did offer an interesting possibility. Since the steering lock was in position 1, and unlocked, I should be able to plug the electrical cable into the second lock and drive the car. This would allow it to move under its own power so I could get more expert eyes on the problem.
The electrical cable was even long enough to poke out through the bottom of the dash.
Before I tried, I at least connected up the oil pressure gauge so I would not have a face full of oil when I started the car.
It worked quite well. The car started right up and I was able to drive it down to where I store the other cars and out of the way. This is also close to the mechanic who is going to take a look at it for me. So I don’t accidently turn off the original key, and create another five hours of work, I have taped over the other key.
This temporary fix allows me to avoid a tow truck and all the associated wasted time and risk of damaging the car. I’m hoping a set of more expert eyes will succeed where I failed and get the ignition tumbler out. At least the car is mobile.
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