More brown Mercedes 190 action. Now with even more pics!

[AndyW201]

Just what a lot* of folk on here have been crying out for, Another Mercedes thread!

 

OBK is my 5th 190e so far, Sadly, am one of those people who think they are the dog's very knackers... I had had a break from them for a while by way of an MG ZR and a Mk4 Astra with the world's most musical Ecotec engine, so at least I had been keeping my modern shite hand in.

 

However when this came up on the 190 owners forum, I had to have it. By the time the ad had been up all of 45 minutes, deposit had been sent and I was arranging collection. The main reason for this was the colour. Nutria brown is an extremely rare colour, especially on a 190, where it was only available for 1993. I had owned one already in this colour, sold it, regretted it, tried to later buy it back, and spent a good few years searching for another. I was also attracted by the fact it was about as povo spec as it was possible to get with these cars. 1.8 engine with 109 rampant horses, manual box, manual sunroof, signs that even the front windows had been manual (later converted to electric. the blanks in the front door cards being a giveaway), and steelies with trims. No front armrest, no rear headrests, virtually no box ticked at all, apart from a decent Blaupunkt radio cassete with electric aerial and taxi centre console.

 

The guy I bought it from is a photographer, so I must admit the photos made it quite hard to resist, along with the brown and beige colour combo.

 

 

The car had a lot of work done. Full nose to tail service, new exhaust including cat, heater matrix and cooling system flushed and refilled, full engine bay detail, including digging out the traps under the servo and fusebox, with a full 16V Cosworth bonnet insulation pad.

 

The interior had also been given a good dig-out,

 

 

 

 

 

Was pleasing to see the original Merc 'ribbed for pleasure' overmats in place and the Blaupunkt still there. Even the rear shelf is still uncut!

 

No epic collection tale sadly. Hitched a lift in my mate's Micra DCi from 'Boro to Chesterfield. Drove back. Erm that was it... Nice to pick a car up that the seller had actually bothered to clean though!

 

 

 

So, I was a happy bunny. I had another poo coloured 190, in decent condition. What could possibly go wrong?

Er, quite a bit as it happens. More soon, if, er, anyone wants.

[rml2345]

That looks bloody lovely in the photos and poo brown actually seems to suit it quite well. 

MOAR PLZ. 

[chaseracer]

Deffo MOAR PLZ M8

 

[vulgalour]

I don't normally get excited by Mercedes but that one is very appealing.  Must be the colour and the rather nice photographs.

[Sigmund Fraud]

Amazing colour combination and shite-tastic spec, with the asthmatic 1.8 and clunky manual box !

 

Condition-wise, it looks proper mint... Looking forward to the rest of the story !

[Barry Cade]

I literally have a semi. That is one fine automobile.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

The best Mercedes. 

[AndyW201]

Thanks for the kind comments so far chaps, Righty ho, moar then!

 

After having a good look around, it was apparent that professional photos and a good detail session can maybe make a car look, um, better than it is?  A good look around after a couple of day's ownership revealed a fair amount of light scratches, small paint chips (most touched in), a couple of light door edge type dinks etc. However, it still wasnt too shabby for a 20 year old 130,000 mile car and even now, it still looks most pleasing with a good cleaning session.

 

I couldnt put it off any longer, I had to have a look underneath. Luckily, all four bungs in the trolley jack points were in place. Always a good sign, and the points themselves were solid. Not so good were the sunroof drain grommet holes. Two of the grommets had been pulled out (as they often do on speed bumps), and all four holes were surface rusty. So they were cleaned up, kurusted, treated to a splash of brown touch up, and new grommets installed.

 

Oh, by the way, it must be noted that all following photos are ones that have been done by me, mostly on a camera I wasnt familiar with at the time, so picture quality is mostly now 2000% lower than on previous ones...

 

 

Sadly, my inquisitive eye got the better of me and while fitting one of the grommets, I noticed a small of slightly stained underseal near one of the drain holes. Now despite the fact the car had passed it's MOT 2 months earlier with no advisories, I couldnt help but have a dig. A muffled crunching sound and a small amount of metal cornflakes confirmed that this would be another 190, like the previous 3, that would need a small tickle with the MIG stick. Shouldnt need a patch much bigger than a couple of inches square though, so not too bad so far. Then I got the square flaps out (missus!) to check the side jacking points inside the cladding. Yep, the metal's gone around one of those as well.

Arsebiscuits.

At least it's all on the same side, so only have to remove one of the sill covers. All solid and tidy on the other side.

 

Next job was the rotor arm and dizzy cap. The old ones were looking shabby, so a shade over £50 got me some OE quality items from ECP.

 

 

Typically, made bugger all difference to how it ran, but at least I know they've been done.

 

So,on a camera I wasnt familiar with, with minimal photogz skillz to start with, I took some 'first wash of new ownership' pics. Although I think some of the grey, dreary effect could be attributed to the fact the car was now in Middlesbrough.

 

 

More soon!

 

 

[trigger]

I really like that, good purchase!

[overrun]

Thats nice is that, you SMOGGIE BASTARD lolol jk my m8

 

It has something of a DTM look about it. Lovin the trims!

D2 stickers and driving on two wheels are a must.

 

I think I see this the other day. It was an older model and different colour.

 

Hello.

[For Fiats Sake]

Love the colour, don't love the lack of horses from a 1.8 though - those krazy jermans yah?

 

Seen more than a few new cars in that shade of poo as well as featuring in magazines and press shoots, alongwith a felching shade of copwat green - yup I think brown is the new silver   

[jmsguzzi]

Looks lovely, one of the best cars ever built. I think i was on the 190 forum years ago but my grammar back then was so bad it would be a crime to resurrect that account. 

[garethj]

That looks quite sweet, nice purchase.

 

Looking at the spec, the first owner basically bought a Sierra 1.8L but in Mercedes form, I wonder how much money he would have saved if he'd bought the Ford?

 

I have fond memories of the 190, when I was in Stuttgart in the 1980s I went to the Mercedes factory to see them being built.

[phil_lihp]

That's rather nice, loving the colour scheme.

[cort16]

Best colour ever for one of these!

[oman5]

weirdly, despite brown being an unsought after colour, it really suits that car and it looks fab, really smart.

[brickwall]

It sure does. That really suits the car and the interior is plasicky enough for me. Looks to be a good find.

[mercrocker]

From a fellow baby-benzer well done my friend on an excellent purchase!    Loving that colour as well as the spec, povo-mercs are the way to go.   Mine has auto and lecky roof but keep-fit windows and plakky wheeltrims.   I have an extremely odd taste in cars that is hard to satisfy - basic spec as possible with maximum quality and a 190E 1.8 does it for me....Good  luck with it and look forward to seeing more instalments.   Nothing else like them  in my opinion (but I have an odder taste than Tizer)

[dollywobbler]

I've decided Mercs aren't for me. But that one does have me querying that decision. Luscious. 

[mouseflakes]

Mmmm - brown. TBH I wouldn't normally look twice at one of these but I just looked at this one three or four times. I'll probably look at it some more later too. Very nice. And brown.

[Wilko220]

Looks a stunna.

Nice original wheel trims as well!

[ProgRocker]

Very nice indeed. A brown Merc sounds rather unappealing at first but this 190 looks very good in the photos. That interior looks spotless.

 

Looks like it'll do another 130,000 miles with ease.

[AndyW201]

Hey, nice to see all the brown love on here!

 

Don't know why but all of a sudden, a povo spec 190 really appealed when this one came up for sale. A throwback to the days when Mercs were famous for having bugger all I suppose. Out of the 4 I owned previously, 3 of them had the sought after sportline lowered suspension package, and one had the sport interior. Two of them had the factory leather, full electric packs, etc. The 190 I owned before this one had the lot, plus it had the 2.6 6-pot motor, so a polar opposite to this one. But the 1.8 bowls along nicely for it's size, being quick enough to not get embarrassed in modern traffic, and with the higher gearing from the 5 speed manual, its quite good on fuel for one of these. The manual box on this one is actually nice to use as well, it's definitely one of the nicer ones.

 

Despite all the nice comments, I'd say it's reasonably tidy, but definitely not a minter. Well, not right now anyway, Not since a fateful morning in June, while driving to work...

I'd only got to the bottom of our close. did the usual look left, nothing coming out of the flats. looked right, nothing coming, nothing this early on a morning anyway... Mind , most mornings, its nearly impossible to see what's coming from the right because there's always a Zafira parked on the corner on the pavement, and there was an LWB Sprinter parked on the pavement behind that on that morning. That is the only way I can think of why I didnt notice a Citroen C3 that WAS actually coming from my right and I clouted it full in the side. Cue one totalled Citroen, and the Merc looking like this.

 

 

Nasty. Luckily no one hurt (other than the inevitable whiplash claim from the Citroen driver that developed a week later despite not going to hospital) apart from very hurt pride on my part...

 

[AndyW201]

I managed to get the car back home and on the drive. For a good few days I couldn't even bear to look at it. I was convinced it was totalled. 

 

Happily, my insurance company took care of the other driver's claim well enough. Sadly I didn't get much joy out of them. I knew if anyone from a bodyshop so much as looked at it, it would be written off. Sadly, the insurance company wouldn' let me buy the car back if it was. It would go straight to Copart. Also if I made any sort of claim, I would have to pay the rest of my policy in full (I pay by instalments), With that and the £500 excess (and the £500 they would have probably valued the car at), I was in the shit basically.

Fully comp insurance, gr8 isn't it?

 

My brother came over and we had a look. He worked in a garage years ago. Some of the work they did was quick cheap body repairs, mainly taxi driver work of the "get it solid and back on the road for Saturday night shift" type. He reckoned it was do able and looked far worse that it was. Frankly apart from breaking the car for spares and weighing it in (which I didn't really want to do), I didn't have much of a choice!

 

So I dug out a wing that I had spare. God knows why I kept it as it was rusty as hell at the leading edge, but at least it was straight. I had a spare indicator, and a mate on the 190 forum donated a headlight.

The following Saturday I limped the car over to my bro's house . I had yet to source some decnt replacement panels, the intention here to get it straight and back on the road for now.

 

Once stripped,it looked far better. Miraculously, the inner wing was undamaged, no kinks in the inner wing or the chassis leg. The only small problems were that the wing mounting rail on the top of the inner wing was bent slightly towards the front, where the outer wing had been pulled away, and the n/s mounting plate on the thick bumper mounting bar had been pushed in slightly. I was relieved as that was the only damage that could be classed as 'structural'. It didn't take long for the inner wing rail to be carefully straightened. The bumper mounting plate took a bit of brute force, but again it was soon all fine.

 

 

Even the side mount for the bumper was untouched and it was nice to see the front of the inner wings near the headlights were rock solid. 190S really can rot around the bumper mounts and near the headlights.

 

 

The temporary front wing from my old Bornite 190 was bolted on. Straight away it was looking better, despite the rust. Nothing a bit of 'racing tape' wouldnt cure though... And at least Bornite is another shade of brown...

 

 

We had to somehow reuse the front bumper for the time being. It was smashed to shit behind though. The glassfibre inner had taken most if the impact and sheared the two nearside mounting studs off, so we reglassed the inner and glassed two new studs in. We then wobbed over the smashed bit of the outer, just under the headlight and hit it with a splash of temporary primer. The black impact strip was pulled as straight as possible and given a splash of satin black.

 

The n/s leading edge of the bonnet had been pushed back a couple of inches, and there was a slight kink. This was gently pulled back so it covered the headlight again, the radius at the edge was built back up, and the kink was tapped out.

 

 

So it wasnt pretty, but imporantly, the car was back on the road and legal again.

 

 

So, moar to follow including replacement panel fitting and laughable attempts at painting. C ya!

[garethj]

I reckon your brother is a bit talented with this kind of thing, plus you managed to get a new Citroen off the road forever.  Every cloud and all that

[Cavcraft]

Job well done there, a lot of people would have just weighed that off. Nice work! 

[mercrocker]

Good work!   both on the shitron front and the Merc front!   Its when you  crunch one of these you realise how bloody well screwed together they are.   Check the  thickness of that steel for a start....I always said that the W201/W123/W126 represent the peak of automobile development and  its only ever gone downhill since then.  So pleased this one can live again, maybe you should paint a little chevron on the front wing, LIberator bomber style!

[Mr Livered]

maybe you should paint a little chevron on the front wing, LIberator bomber style!

^Smashing idea! DO this

[Jim Bell]

Good save fella.

[HillmanImp]

I feel your pain after crashing it. But accidents happen. Glad its not too bad and back on the road.