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

[Partridge]

That's one lucky Merc! No go sue the Sprinter driver.

[HMC]

Good work! Ive never seen what those bumper brackets actually look like before as with both my previous 190s rust had dissolved them. The bornite wing doesnt look bad at all IMO.

[AndyW201]

^Smashing idea! DO this

Lol at that! Wish I'd done something like mercrocker suggested I was going to whip the wheeltrims off and rat it up a bit (actually it was already pretty much there come to think of it) and have something to scare other traffic, small kids and old people with.

But the bad temporary panels have now been replaced. When I get my arse into gear and get some pics done, I'll get some up of how it looks now.

 

Seeing how basically sound the shell was one of the reasons I decided to try and save the car. I've also seen ones where the bumper mounts and the fronts of the inner wings have been non existent. A lot of 190 enthusiasts are of the opinion that the last cars from '92-'93 were in fact the best built of the lot. Which seems to be at odds with what else was happening at MB at the time. Whether it was because the 190 was built at a different factory to the other models, I don't know.

[Lord Sterling]

Brilliant save lad. Reminds me of the time I smashed my F-reg 827Si. I did get help repairing it but of course the repairs were nowhere near as good but it did get the car back on the road for the time being.

[Faker]

Nice save.

[Junkman]

Man. You bunch can't be left to your own for five minutes.

[George-Roper]

Well done on not weighing it in. It looks a great motor for one of those.

[Tetleysmooth]

Sort of on topic, there's a cheapy 190e for sale over on RR at the mo. Needs a bit of fettling mind.

 

http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/157758/merc-petrol-drift-project-swindon

[Partridge]

I can't go on RR because I'm banned.

[brickwall]

Your brother is a master!

[Partridge]

Once it's sprayed up, you'd never know.

[cort16]

I can't go on RR because I'm banned.

What did you do?

[Partridge]

I said "Rovers are basically -curse word-". I'm not joking. I was accused of trolling.

Even though at the time I owned one.

 

EDIT. I owned a Rover, not an internet troll.

[cort16]

Seems legit. There are different rule for different members though. I've seen Mr Bollox and others be a right cheeky monkeys on some threads and not get into any bother but if you're a newer user they'll just ban you outright. I suppose they always say their forum their rules so fair enough.

 

Is this the Merc story up to date or is there more to come??

[Partridge]

I'd only been on there an hour! Not all that annoyed, I'm very much a brown man, not a blue man.

RR is like a posh sandwhich bar. Here, it's more like a really dodgy social club.

[AndyW201]

Right, more has been done on this, stupid windows phone won't let me

upload pics, so will get some on at t'weekend.

 

Its all one colour now at least...

[Partridge]

Good-pleased with it?

[vulgalour]

Welcome to the Repair Your Brown Car At Home club.

[stuboy]

that repair good for another ten years

[AndyW201]

Good-pleased with it?

Very! Okay it's rattle canned for now, but considering how it looked post-accident I'm just glad to have the thing on the road.

[overrun]

I once saw a sign that said 'Jesus Saves'.

 

He would have been out of his depth with this one. Top work Andy and bro!

[AndyW201]

Right, as promised a bit moar!

 

So, this is where we left things. A bit sad looking, but on the road at least...

 

 

However, as much as I like the colours Bornite and Nutria, I wasn't all that keen on having them both on one car. So after a wanted ad on the 190 forum, one of the guys came up trumps with a mint, rust free wing and a bumper for £50. Megabarg! He even stuck them in his C Class estate and ran them up from Morecambe to Penrith so I could pick them up on my truck run. He also asked if he should throw his old set of AMG wheels and good tyres in the car as well. "80 quid to you"...

Ah go on then!

 

So, one nice afternoon, I was round to my bro's house again with said panels and a few cans of custom mixed Nutria brown.

 

So the front corner of the car was stripped again.

 

 

The fit of the headlight wasnt quite right before, so the bottom mount was massaged out slightly, luckily this bit is fairly thin and easily moved. That done, the bumper brackets on both sides under the wings, the mounting plates on the ends of the central bar and the n/s headlight mount where it had been pulled out were all wire brushed, kurusted, primed and painted. It'll probably never be seen again, but at the age of the car, it's worth doing.

 

 

(apologies for shite pics again, I'm no photographer. As should be clear by now.)

 

So the whole shebang was sprayed, bolted up and she's now back together. Nowhere near as mint as original, but it'll do nicely through the Winter, until I can save up and get the bits sprayed properly. Whenever that will be....

 

I've started to get a decent shine on the wing, and the section of bonnet, and the bonnet has been blended in. However I'm no Vulgalour, and it shows! The pics show a difference of about a mile in shade. Put that down to trying to match 20 year old original paint that has faded a bit, and new rattle can paint mixed by a 20 year old guy in Halfrauds with purple hair...

 

Anyway, a picture says a thousand words (or in the case of my pictures, about 27.), so here's how she looks now,

 

(The bonnet is actually shiny, it was just stating to mist over when I took the pics.)

 

 

I know the rims won't go down too well with some. To be fair though, they are in period for the car and are the right size, width and offset for the 190, so fit like a glove. The car has already been lowered slightly (with proper 30mm springs, not OMGSLAMMEDCUTSPRINGZYO), and the steelies looked a bit wrong sat far in the arches. These fill the arches out a bit better and look fairly OE.

 

So, that's how things are a the mo, but I think the car has a few more pleasant* surprises in store, so more probably to come...

[trigger]

HOT TO TROT. I would love to try a 190E out one day, I was looking for one recently but I couldn't find any in my budget sadly. 

[rml2345]

I liked the steelies but those alloys do suit the lower ride. It also looks bloody good considering the shunt you had earlier.

112%/10. WILL GO FAR.

[brickwall]

that has turned out well. I like the wheels

[Jim Bell]

Looks nice man. I kind of like those big Merc wheel trims tbh.

 

Still looks shweeyt though.

[Spiny Norman]

Nice repair job, and still a very fit looking car.

[AndyW201]

Right chaps,

 

This lovely motah is up for sale.

 

Most of the details are in this thread, to recap, it's a late (1993) example, with a strangely appealing povo spec. 1.8 engine with manual box, electric front windows only (which have been retro fitted, the car had manual fronts originally), front headrests only, and cloth trim. The only boxes ticked when first ordered are the taxi console, Blaupunkt Atlanta radio cassette and electric aerial. Being a 1993 model it does have ABS and drivers airbag however.

 

As mentioned in this thread, the car was in a low-speed accident in June this year, the car sustained damage to the ns front corner. The front bumper, wing and ns headlight/indicator were replaced and the ns corner of the bonnet had some repair work done. There was no structural damage other than the thin rail that the wing bolts on to, which needed straightening slightly. The main inner wing, chassis leg, etc were perfect though. It is now all fitted up and repainted and laquered, albeit by rattle cans for now. It was always my intention to get it into my local spray shop once Winter's out of the way. They quoted £200 or so to get the wing and bonnet back to 'factory', presuming there's anyone in AS land who would be concerned with such things... The repairs were done out of my pocket, so has no insurance claim against it, no write off marker, etc.

 

Bodywork wise, apart from the aforementioned, it's generally a good 'un. No rust on any panel, a handful of small pin dents of the 'car door in supermarket' type. Front and rear arches are superb. The replacement front wing is as rust free as is possible to get, with soft wax still covering the inside. While the front was stripped for repair, it was noted the front inner wings, chassis leg fronts, bumper mounts, etc are quite superb, the best I've seen on one of these. The paint gleams although there are a number of light scratches, touched in chips and small scrapes, etc. Generally though, it looks well for a 20 year old car and compares well with more modern stuff.

Not forgetting the fact that it's Nutria. Possibly the rarest colour available on the 190, (only 5 known to the owners forum had been finished in that colour, it was only available for the 1993 model year.) it gives an unashamedly 80s flavoured car a bit of a 70s spin. A bit like Propaganda performing on Top of the pops while riding Raleigh Choppers, or... not.

 

The 1.8 litre powerhouse runs well and sounds sweet enough. Oil pressure is especially healthy and under the oil cap is clean as a whistle. No sign of oil and water mixing anywhere. Cooling system was flushed and refilled with fresh coolant at the start of this year. Warms up quickly, never goes over 80 deg when driving and fan kicks in at 92 deg in traffic and cools it down as it should. The manual boxes on these cars have their critics , but I personally like them and the one on this car works as well as it should, it's one of the nicer ones that I've tried. There is a slight bit of diff whine, but only slight, diff oil was changed earlier this year. The car sits on lowering springs (GSF 40mm by the look of it) but they don't seem to have hurt the ride all that much)

 

Interior is in pretty good shape. No bolster wear on the cream cloth seats. There is a slight pen mark on the rear seat (covered by the lap belt). Carpets are in good shape having had ribbed MB overmats from new (which are still in very good condition). What equipment there is works well, along with the original Blaupunkt, which is a lovely bit of kit.

 

Right, the bad bits..

 

The car does take a bit of time to start on a morning, about 6 or 7 seconds, but still fires on that first go. It settles down to idle straight away though and starts straight away after that initial start up. It had a new dizzy cap and rotor arm about 3000 miles ago, and hope to get a new set of leads on in the next couple of weeks.

 

The car has developed a squeak from the transmission tunnel area in the last couple of weeks. It has also developed a slight bit of transmission shunt at the same time, so would assume the propshaft couplings and/or centre bearing are past their best.

 

When jacking the car up recently, I noticed that the offside front jacking point (the side jacking point behind the sill cover) has rusted. The trolley jack points and drain grommet holes underneath are all solid though. Other bodywork worry is there is a small leak into the boot, after a downpour. Now the previous owner removed the rear shelf and sent photos of the rear shelf panel before I bought the car, and it is all solid, so hopefully it just needs the rear screen seal replacing before it gets worse.

 

The exhaust has had a slight rattle since I bought the car. The front pipe, cat and mid section was all replaced before I bought it. It sounds like either a rattly heatshield or a loose baffle somewhere?

 

3 of the doorcards have about had it (TADTS). The previous owner had attempted to fix them with some channel over the tops, which held them for a while, but they need something thicker to jam them into the to the window channels.

 

Despite all this though, it's still well worth doing all this as its a lovely looking car in one of the rarest colours. Car is on 124,000 miles. Not a lot in the way of service history, apart from the book stamped up to 118,000, 20 stamps in all. The car had a thorough going over just before I got it, with receipts.

MOT expires in February (no advisories on last one, 4000 miles ago) and tax expires in March.

 

It really is a nice car, I didn't think I'd ever find another Nutria 190 again. But now with work going crazy, me having to spend 2 days a week away and a 1 and a 3 year old taking a lot of time up, I have to concede that I don't have the spare time to devote to keeping an older car anymore right now, and need to find something I don't have to care about as much. Naturally I have been following the ebay thread on here looking at Alfa 156s, Citroen ZX Volcane TDs and crusty Cortinas. Its the Autoshite way. I hope I can find a caring home for this car as it really is worth saving.

 

I recently fitted a set of 15" AMG replica alloys with decent tyres, that are in tidy respectable condition. The car is available on these, or if you would prefer it on the original steelies on excellent tyres and original 190 wheel trims, it can come on these for a lower price.

 

Price is £650 ono on the alloys, £550 ono on the steels. Car also comes with complete mechanisms and new winders to convert the front windows back to manual, along with a gearshift surround without window switch holes.

 

Pics are a bit of a problem right now, my gr-3 laptop shit itself just before Christmas and can't upload pics on this phone. However pics of the car in it's current state are a few posts before here.

 

Any comments, queries, general piss taking etc, feel free to post or PM. Car is in Middlesbrough, very near bus, rail and even aiport links for GR9 collection threads.

 

Cheers all!

[Split_Pin]

That is one fit and bargainous motor there. I love the colour and Germanic functionality of it.

 

I know what you mean about family taking over though. Hopefully when they get a bit older you can return to an older car again.

[Cavcraft]

Those alloys are perfect. I scored a set of AM rep's for mine from the 190club and had them sprayed black (040?) to match the car. They looked brill and really suited it.