Project Mercedes Benz - W123 230E & W124 200E - Both happy and working ok

[xtriple]

Ahaa! My thread has arrived at last. 'S' class Mercs, my favourite subject.

I have had a variety of 116s in straight six and various V8s including a 450SEL 6,9, now that was thirsty!

126s are a better car, but not by that much, just newer and not so rusty. I LOVE the 126s, they are so classy and smooth, beautiflly well built, will last for ever if looked after to even a basic amount, I'd have another in a moment.

Get one.

[Peter C]

xtriple, I am impressed that you had a 6.9. If it was good enough for James Hunt....

Years ago I had a W126 300SE, silver with black leather. Hang on, I’m going to find a photo of it...

[Peter C]

Bloody Photobucket.

[lesapandre]

20 years ago you could pick them up for a few hundred. Those were the days....

[Peter C]

8 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

20 years ago you could pick them up for a few hundred. Those were the days....

I did just that, I paid £400 for a tidy 300SE with a new MoT.

[lesapandre]

I had a 420 - £225; a 500 - £350; a 560 -£500...sigh. All MoT. But...they did drink petrol which made them expensive. I still have a 560SEC I bought in 2002 for £1500...I have the original invoice £56,000 in 1982...more than quite a lot of houses then.

[Peter C]

Any chance of a photo of the SEC?

[HMC]

1 hour ago, lesapandre said:

20 years ago you could pick them up for a few hundred. Those were the days....

I bought an ex Libyan oil company ‘89 500sel for £500 in 2012- great machine and 800 for a 1993 500sel the same year. Those were the days!

I can’t find the pics of those but here are a couple I owned around the same time- I had my drive filled with about 6 at once at one point. the black 420SE was £750 And sold my 560sec on here for £200 (ok it was terminally rotten) but it had an mot and a (supposedly ) 300bhp 5.6 v8 sounds amazing but it was fucked. (Des bought it)

 

That’s me chucking the ‘91 420 over a roundabout. Took it to Germany and cruised happily at 110mph and started in temps of -16. Lovely car.

[richardmorris]

I like my daily driver for the last eight years and 50,000 miles.

 

[lesapandre]

50 minutes ago, Peter C said:

Any chance of a photo of the SEC?

I'm in a different country to the car...but when we are reunited yup.

[Peter C]

Found this, slightly better photo of my 300SE.

 

I ended up swapping the old Merc for a slightly newer Lexus LS400, which I kept for less than a month.

[yes oui si]

W140s are lovely slabs, woefully underwheeled from the factory though ?

[HMC]

Mine was an early 500sel gold with brown leather. Self closing doors, double glazing and those natty parking aids (a metal antenna that projected out of the rear wing when reverse was selected )

Fleet shot summer 2012

 

[Peter C]

 

A tidy W220 can be had for sub £2k.

Or for £4k you can have a W221.

Amazing levels of luxury for beer money but so much to go wrong and potentially very expensive to fix. Does anyone have experience of either model?

[Peter C]

Firstly, the gear stick gaiter needed urgent attention. The leather was faded, frayed and worn - it looked knackered.

I got this from Amazon for £7.

I didn't want to dismantle the centre console and potentially disturb some wiring, so the repair got done with the gaiter in situ.

Less than 5 minutes later the gaiter looked a lot fresher. Black coloured dye will obviously not fix the frayed and worn bits of leather but overall I am pleased with this quick and cheap solution.

The other thing letting the interior down was the split in the driver's seat side bolster.

I've been looking out for a replacement seat on other forums and on EBay and found exactly dick. Whilst driving to work last week, I found myself following a van, sign written and advertising car trim repairs. I spoke to the chap and he quoted a reasonable fee. He came over this morning and achieved this.

The missing section of MB-Tex (vinyl) was renewed using a vinyl paste, which once set, took on the texture of the original covering. Then the repair patch got sprayed with vinyl paint and hey presto, I have a seat that is as good as new.

[SRi05]

That repair is amazing !

[Peter C]

3 minutes ago, SRi05 said:

That repair is amazing !

Sure is boy.

I am equally impressed.

[Peter C]

Now the seat and gear stick gaiter have been sorted (gaiter to be replaced soon), the interior needed a little more TLC. The original floor mats were completely worn and the temporary replacements that covered them didn't look much better.

I ordered a new set of mats from EBay, which arrived this morning. In the EBay listing photos the mats looked dark grey. Matching blue mats were unavailable and I thought that dark grey would have gone well with blue. Whilst the new mats fit very well and are of reasonable quality, they are a much lighter shade of grey than I expected and I think they look a little odd. 

I gave the carpets a good hoover, cleaned the trim and took some photos. Considering that the 200E is approaching its 30th birthday, the interior is in remarkable condition - testament to pre-W210 Mercedes quality.

[Broadsword]

Really impressed with that interior!

[artdjones]

MB-Tex looks more attractive than the leather option in the W124,which always looks like plastic.

[Peter C]

Despite my previous efforts, the original gear stick gaiter was not looking its best.

A new leather gaiter, sourced via EBay, including p&p, cost me all of £5. I was apprehensive as to its quality, however I am pleased to say that the leather is nice and soft and the dimensions match the original part.

The advice offered in a YouTube video that shows how to remove the gaiter is worthless. The man in the film is working on a knackered and modified W124, nothing like my pride and joy. To get the old gaiter off, I had to destroy it. There was no going back!

To get from this stage to the completion took me over an hour, mostly due to Mercedes Benz's tight part fitment tolerances.

However, with the new gaiter installed, the interior is now looking near mint.

 

[Conan]

I have never seen old MB-Tex in bad shape! They really expected the car to last 30 years.

[Peter C]

I've had my W123 230E for over ten years now. When I bought it, it was in reasonable condition and had 90k miles on the clock with no history whatsoever. During my ownership I've added approx 45k miles, which included two trips across Europe to Poland and back and a few hops down to the south coast. For the past six years it has been a total garage queen and the subject of a minor rolling restoration. Over the years its had a new rear scuttle panel, a pair of new rear wheel arches and a repair panel welded to the bottom of the offside  front wing. I've also tidied up the engine bay as the dusty and rusty original bay was letting the car down at the few shows that I attended over the years.

This morning I dragged the 230E out of the garage to give it a quick hoover and wipe over. My iPhone camera is rubbish as the car appears almost white in the photos, which it isn't. The colour is a light ivory, known as hellelfenbein in German, the same as German taxis. 

Still looking good after 35 years.

Rain stopped play and the 230E went back into hibernation.

Meanwhile in the adjoining garage the 200E was taking a nap.

[richardmorris]

Is the w123 a north wales car? I’ve had two TU suffixed cars both Brooklands garage in Wrexham, D299STU and D708RTU.

[Shep Shepherd]

The 230E is a heck of a nice car. So's the 200E  for that matter 

[Peter C]

1 hour ago, richardmorris said:

Is the w123 a north wales car? I’ve had two TU suffixed cars both Brooklands garage in Wrexham, D299STU and D708RTU.

From 1974 TU plates were issued in Chester.

[artdjones]

My next door neighbour had a beige 1979 200 in the early 80s.It looks ok as a colour on a W123, but not so good on anything later.

[Broadsword]

The W123 looks absolutely stunning!!!

[MorrisItalSLX]

Wow! You could eat your dinner off those wheel wells!

My love and lust for the W123 grows ever stronger.

[Peter C]

On Tuesday afternoon I had to meet with a client in Henley-On-Thames. I parked the 200E in a quiet side street, within a designated parking bay. A scaffolder's van was parked on the corner of the road and three monkeys were working on the back of the building next to where I parked. I was not expecting any trouble. When I returned to the 200E half an hour later, I immediately noticed impact damage to the rear of the 200E. The three monkeys had disappeared but their van had not moved. I looked around for any sign of the three monkeys but they were hiding properly, possibly looking at me from behind a curtain. I had to move on and meet with another client and had no time to investigate the incident. Realistically, what could I do? The three monkeys knew that they did wrong, hence they did not leave a note and hid away. If I found them and accused them of causing damage to my car I would have at best been told where to go or at worst retreated without a full complement of front teeth. 

Fortunately, the damage was quite localised. Unfortunately, the dent was quite deep and cracked the paint. 

Next morning this happened - 140k miles!

I've had a little time to repair the damaged rear panel. I sanded down the cracked paint, knocked the dent out from the inside and smoothed the area with a skim of filler.

Next came my professional masking off.

I still had half a can of correct Arctic White paint and the repair turned out ok. Over the weekend I will flatten the new paint with 1500 grade paper and give it a polish. Fortunately, I had all the necessary sundries and the repair took less than an hour. Karma will sort out the three monkeys.

And today I took the 200E for an MoT. Good news, it sailed through and it's good for another year. The previous MoT was valid until mid May and the 200E was booked in for a test on the 20th April 2020, however with all the Coronavirus nonsense that is going on, I figured it would be best to have the 200E tested and sorted asap rather than hanging around and finding myself with a car out of test.