On a W123 or W126, normally I would go with the Lemforder motor mounts, which are excellent.    I couldn’t find any of those for sale.   Generally I avoid Meyle parts as I find their quality and longevity questionable.  However, I had read a couple of good reviews of their HD parts.    Given 240Ds have a reputation of being hard on motor mounts, I thought I would give them a try.

At the same time, I bought a new transmission mount, plus and engine shock and fitting kit.    Interestingly, while the 300D has a pair of engine shocks like a V8, the 240D has a single one.   When the Meyle mounts arrived, they looked quite substantial, and quite different form the regular Meyle mounts.  I didn’t inspect the transmission  mount, but it seemed to make sense to do them all at the same time.

Now I have the car back, my initial feeling is that these mounts are very hard, and probably a bit too hard.   I expect they will settle a little, which may make them a bit better.   They are an improvement on the original mounts, but are a little harsh, particularly when the engine is cold.

While the car was in, I also had the shift bushings and thermostat changed.    I would normally do the shift bushings myself, with the Kent Bergsma tool, but my hoist is currently broken.   The car had been running a bit hotter than I would like, so the thermostat seemed like an obvious thing to do.

The shift bushings made a big difference, and so far the thermostat seems to have helped somewhat.   The engine still gets quite warm going up a steep hill, but it now cools off a bit when not under load.    I’ll keep an eye on this.    I was able to verify that the oil cooler is working.   When I parked the car after driving today, the oil cooler was warm to the touch.

I’ve been really enjoying this car. The W123 sedan is such a great car, especially when compared to how cheap they are to buy.

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changing the W126 transmission mount is generally a simple affair.  The transmission is jacked up a little, with care taken not to dent the pan.  The mount is freed via three bolts – two on the crossmember with a 13mm socket and one to the tail of the transmission with a 19mm nut.

The old transmission mount was in poor shape.  The mount had entirely collapsed and the rubber was doing very little.   This was obvious when comparing to the new one.

The installation of the new mount was not straightforward.   For some reason, I could not get the bolts into the mount through the crossmember.   Sure enough, when I removed the mount, there were no threads in the holes!  The new mount is an aftermarket one from Meyle.   This was quite perplexing, but at 11pm I didn’t have the means to do anything about it.    I don’t know if this is because there is a manufacturing defect; I have the wrong mount; or my car has been modified at some time.    The old mount was so bad I did not want to re-install it.   When I examined it to check the threads, it was clear that only some old grease was holding it together.

In the end I installed the new one using only the top mounting.  This was enough to gently move the car out of the way so I could drive home in the 450SLC.

A couple of days later I purchased an M8 thread tap.   This allowed me to re-use the bolts from before to install the mount.   It would have been easier if I had access to a vice and the right tool to hold the tap instead of a pair of cheap vice grips.   Once the thread was tapped the installation of the mount was as straightforward as it should be.   The vibration is gone and you can feel the difference in driving the car.   I’m not really sure if tapping some new threads into the Meyle W126 transmission mount was the right thing to do, but it did seem to be the best option at my disposal.

Next time I will try a different brand W126 transmission mount.

While I was there, I did an oil change on the car and installed a new breather hose.   The old one was rock hard and they are not expensive.   I had cracked one of the vacuum hoses installing a new air filter a few weeks ago, so I also installed a replacement vacuum hose.   The vacuum hoses get brittle with age.

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