SOLD: 1990 W124 300E - new owner's adventures

[dollywobbler]

Sigmund - the glory days may be over. Was speaking to someone today who told me M-B have been deleting a lot of lines of W123 parts (and pushing prices up of the stuff they will supply - with the above halfshaft price, presumably the W124 is getting the same treatment). Guess if you want a well supported car, it'll have to be a Bristol then.

[Sigmund Fraud]

That's a major disappointment ! Prices were always salty (I was quoted £300 for the driver's seat fabric cover, IIRC !), but the whole service was targeted towards the 'old money' types that bought their Mercs new and kept them for decades, rather than us cheapskates that buy them 30 years down the line for £500.

 

I love Bristols, but I am so far removed from the typical Bristol owner that the club would probably turn up at my doorstep with pitch forks and burning torches and demand I hand them the keys to my Beaufighter, so they can deliver it to a more worthy custodian.

[Mr Livered]

What a shame. A couple of years ago I was driving an A reg 200T (estate W123) as my daily. Going to MB for parts was a bit of a last resort because of the price, but it was good to know that no part would be unobtainable. Not to mention the fact that it's a seriously impressive dedication on the part of a company towards its customer base, to keep serving them indefinitely.

[xkjaguar]

I have an excellent Merc only breakers a few miles off the homeward beaten track, can get just about anything, unfortunately for you lot it in Waitakere (near Auckland)

[doug]

I got my replacment from Carl Burgess at  www.w140.co.uk, highly recommended service. You have to be carefull as there are loads of different lengths of these shafts depending on the hubs/diffs fitted.

[chaseracer]

The remanufacturer in Wolverhampton recommended by the oldskool parts guy at the Merc dealer can do one, ready to fit to the car, in a couple of days

 

Thanks for all your help, friends - especially Tetleysmooth, who even placed ads for me!

[HMC]

Ive used dronsfields in the past going second hand for the comedically priced mb bits.

 

Its usually worth checking first, i nearly bought a pattern rad on e bay last year only to find the mb OEM rad from the dealer was barely any more money.

 

I like the uber efficiency of how quoting the chassis number allows things to be perfectly matched to the car and how stuff can be 'sent over from germany' at a few days notice. Obviously at a price.

[chaseracer]

New* shaft ordered & on the way...

[Sigmund Fraud]

Hang on a sec. You have a Beaufighter?!

 

I wish... I was talking hypothetically 

[chaseracer]

Damn! We were ready to agree that you had won Autoshite...

[Pete-M]

Some Mercs do things like this. My 190E broke expensive bits regularly, which is why I sold someone the leather interior on the basis that they "took the whole fucking car" for the price they'd bought the interior for. It looked absolutely mint, but mechanically the thing was possessed by something that didn't like Mercedes.

My 260E was pretty bombproof, other than the stupid single wiper which would work fine for 20 minutes and then go into 'go slow' mode for the rest of the day and a water pump that decided to let the impellor spin on its shaft randomly. That wasn't the end of the world to fix, thankfully. Never did sort the wiper problem even after replacing the whole setup including the switch. My W123 280TE fired its offside front coil spring about 200 ft in the air one day when entering a petrol station forecourt - that was exciting and it tried to kill me a few times when trying to fit a mile long coil spring in the tiny space you have to wangle the spring through to fit it. Broke two sets of Snap-On spring clamps.. . The 500 SEL could only be killed by rust - which killed it.

Weirdly, I still like Mercs. They're ace when they work as they should, and once they're as they should be they're a lot better to drive once you're familiar with them. Initially they seem like big, dull witted, heavy old barges.

 

[dome]

I tried to change the front springs on my 300D. Got the correct compressor and followed the instructions. It was fooking scary. Ended up only doing 1, the other spring was sold with the car. Still got the compressor though, I'm not finished with old Mercs just yet...

 

[Pete-M]

I also only changed one spring. No way I was gonna go through all that again.

[chaseracer]

Thanks, lads. I'll look forward to doing that once I've got the unehelicher Panzerwagen mobile again...

[Pete-M]

It's a Mercedes initiation ceremony. Mercs version of doing a K series head gasket, just a lot scarier and a fair bit more likely to kill.

[chaseracer]

Aha.

 

Not so much OMGHGF, more OMFGWTF...

[panhard65]

The front springs on a 4x4 merc are very strange the drive shaft goes through them at the bottom if I remember rightly. We used to look after one years ago I think it was a 200TE a nice old car but luckily we never had to change the springs

[chaseracer]

I have the replacement drive shaft. Now to fit same.

 

Errm...

 

[dollywobbler]

[chaseracer]

 
Hark!  An allegory, appropriately descriptive of my mechanical ability!

 

[chaseracer]

It's at my mate's garage. Asked him to check wheel bearings and the wobbly speedo cable while it's there.

 

Fingers crossed, eh?

 

[Barry Cade]

There is a knack to doing older Merc front springs- sussed after about 3, hold no fear for me now,using no special tools...Sprinter ball joints still scare the shite out of me though....never EVER heat up a Merc balljoint!

[chaseracer]

The Saga of the Ancient Three-Pointed Star continues.

 

The transmission has been serviced by the man who built Red Victor 3.  The comedy HT leads have been replaced by a set that has not degraded or been heat-damaged by using the exhaust manifold as a passive support mechanism.  All six plugs are appropriately tight. 

 

And yet... and yet... a hesitancy remains, at low revs under load - which suggests ignition/electrical or fuel pressure.  So, before I start replacing half the fuel system to chase the problem, I decided to go back to basics and have the battery tested.  Guess what?  Bollocksed!  A quick trip to CES and I have a lovely 62Ah Yuasa ready to bolt in tomorrow.

 

Still - it's cheaper than golf. And, possibly, a Golf...

[mercrocker]

^And better than either....which both seem to involve a lot of unnecessary walking in my experience

[dollywobbler]

Those HT leads were a joke. I wasn't impressed. They were actually better than the ones that came off though!

[richardmorris]

How's the OVP relay? My friend's 300SE was transformed with a new one.

[chaseracer]

Does this control cold-starting or idling? That's where the remaining problems are.

[Inspector Morose]

It's the relay that I was thinking of when we met up last and couldn't think what it was called. It's an over voltage protection relay that stabilises the voltage to the injection system amongst other things. If it's borked, the fairly primitive ecu can't read the sensors properly and all sorts of weird running problems ensue. I had the same problem on my 190. It's usually dry joints inside the relay and sometimes can be resurrected by a wave with the hot iron.