My question is for anyone familiar with Potomac German Auto in Frederick, MD. I'd like to know if you can walk in, ask for a part, and then choose one of them yourself from stock?

Sure, I could call ahead and ask about this, but I just want to gather other's experience.

My car has a loose, whining, worn differential, and I want to get one from a place like PG Auto. But, I want to examine potential replacements myself from their available candidates. Naturally I'd pick out the best one.

Will they allow that?

Ken300D

Sure !!!!

All I ask is that you call ahead. What I can do is find the lowest mileage diffs that I have on the shelf & you can choose from one of them .:D

YES! You can walk in. I have used them several times for parts - '70 220D & '80 240D. They were always good to give me the best part available. I could go into the field to pick parts, but they want remove them. They had some bad experienc of people "tearing out the parts they wanted" and leaving more damage than they needed to. When purchasing parts, they allowed me to see several to select the best and they maintained good milage records of the cars when they are brought in. They also do some work in relation to the sales, such as engine replacment. I liked them, never had a problem and would recommend them.
Sharjah03

Potomac Pat,
Is there a swap that is easy and fairly stright forward to get better low end performance from an 1995 e320 cabriolet? Those cars are really fairly sluggish off of the line and I would love to give it some real get up and go. I've heard of people swapping rear ends for a better geared one to increase off the line figures and since I live in the US the top speed sacrifice isn't that crucial since I don't drive above 80mph anyway.
Thanks for any info you can provide. Also do you have any rearends in stock that would work for my application?? The car has the sportline suspension so handles really well it is just a pig off the line.
thanks,
brian

That may be what I have to do. I haven't received a response from the 3-4 emails I've sent.

The E320 (w124) utilizes a 2.65 rear, regardless of whether or not it has ASR or ASD.

As far as a replacement diff would go to increase your "off-the-line" performance. I am unsure. Someone here on the forum has got to have an idea of what would effectively work for you.

Hey Pat, since it looks like you might read this, I will ask.

What is the feasibility of buy a used head (complete with cam, etc), and just cleaning it and bolting it on and running it as is, and maybe just replacing the valve seals on both sides?

My car is a 1983 380SEL, and the head has an 82 cast into it.
I have bent valves and a broken cam.

I just checked the Potomac site and it says they have this:

1982 Head(Cylinder)
Mercedes 380 380SEL (126) LEFT- USED 1POTCR $150.35

Is that head going to have a 81 cast in, or 82? Do wrecking yards classify a part like this by the year manufactured or the year the DMV says it is?


If that price is complete with cam, it's a good price, and it would be worth it to pay the shipping to me on the west coast. I'm trying to fix this car on the cheap.

George

The M116 cylinder heads that we offer are used units & are sold w/o the cam & journals, as they are removed & inventoried separately.

I would not recommend installing a used head w/o sending it to the machine shop to have it completely reworked.

The 380 heads will work from 81-85.
:D