The steering wheel on my 1980 300SD had about 1.5" of play. The slack was in the steering box and adjusting it did not remove it. I purchased another steering box from a salvage yard who said the car it came from only had a little over 100,000 miles on it (or do the odometer gears typically strip at a little over 100,000 miles? Mine are stripped at 130,000 miles) and it has about 3/4" of slop in it at the steering wheel. What's going on here? Do these steering boxes have a problem and typically wear? My Oldsmobile has 200,000 miles on it with no looseness in the steering and my last car , a Chevrolet, had 375,000 miles on it with no looseness in the steering. What's with this Mercedes? Help please!

 

See if you can get a steering box from 86 or later model. These had a pin which keeps load on the gears, and seems to reduce wear. Make sure before you buy it, that the mounting points are the same. Do not modify your chassis to suit a later steering box if it doesn't fit.