I am embarrassed to ask, but I cannot get the headlight out of my "new" MB and I do not want to break anything. I have worked on cars for 40 years but never on a MB. My '96 Volvo 850 Turbo wagon so far seems much friendlier. Any instructions with pictures or online resources to recommend? Also interested in a source for a good repair manual (paper or electronic) that is detailed, but friendly (can find what I am looking for).

Thanks, Steve

 

Visited my service guy and found out that I was going in the right direction. You have to take the turn signal out first before you take the clear plastic bezel off from around the headlight (with three obvious ~1.25" dia. white plastic hand nuts). There is a similar white plastic hand nut on the side that I had loosened to take out the turn signal, but it still wasn't moving and I couldn't find a second nut...turns out it was just stuck in place due to time. He pushed on the bolt (that the white plastic hand nut came off of) toward the fender, it broke free, and he slid the turn signal housing out toward the front of the car (there are two tabs on the front of the turn signal housing that require sliding it forward before it comes out). Once the clear plastic bezel was removed from around the headlight there is a chrome metal bezel that actually holds the headlight in that has four small phillips head screws - two top, two bottom. Once these screws are out, the head light is just attached by the plug-in power wires. Done.

I am still interested in recommendations for a good (detailed but friendly) service manual for my car. Anybody?

 

Go on ebay and there are those that sell CDs for around 10-20 bucks. Covers all 126s on two CDs.
They are very complete, along with thousands of pictures to help guide even a novice to do almost all normal repairs.

Then you can also go to http://epc.startekinfo.com/epc/login.jsp and sign up for a free subscription, if you are in the USA (you need to submit a CC number, which verifies your location), and you can look up parts for your car as well as fairly detailed diagrams of the parts