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


Peter C

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10 minutes ago, SiC said:

Is that the outfit that the MX5 guys love for their alignments? @gm probably will know. 

I've certainly heard their name a few times around the forums, a bit too far down south for me though :) 

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  • Peter C changed the title to Mercedes W124 200E - Rolling Resto - Gearbox replacement - how does the story end?

So, on route home yesterday I popped over to see the mechanic. The 200E was still on jacks, the gearbox was in (hoorah!) but the propshaft and exhaust still needed refitting. I was told to come back in an hour.

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Just because the gearbox was in, it didn't mean that it would be any good. I returned to collect the 200E at 5:45pm, suitably dressed in case I was going to get dirty. With everything reassembled, we pulled the 200E out of the workshop and the mechanic asked me to start the engine and select all gears.

Whilst I could get 3rd, 4th, 5th and reverse, the gearstick would not move across to the left of the gate to enable selection of 1st and 2nd gears. The first two gears could only be selected if I pushed the gearstick forward by approx 5mm, then to the left but even then the movement was very clunky. Getting the gearstick back to the central position took a lot of wiggling. We concluded that the rod that links the gearstick mechanism to the selector lever on the gearbox needed adjustment. The rod has a locknut, which, once released, allows the rod to be lengthened or shortened.

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Following a little trial and error, the mechanic got the length of the rod just right and with everything reassembled I could easily select all gears. By then it was dark and cold and I decided to put the other two gearboxes and left over parts in the boot and drive home. 

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I reversed out of the mechanic's yard and onto the road. With the original (faulty) gearbox fitted, I often had problems selecting 1st gear from standstill and there was no way I could get the 'box into 1st gear if the car was moving. To my immense satisfaction, 1st gear went straight in, then 2nd, then 3rd, then 4th and 5th. No crunching, no whining, no rumbling, I finally had a fully functioning gearbox.

The first replacement gearbox did not cost me anything and truth be told I enjoyed my journey to East Anglia to collect it. The second gearbox cost me £95 and less than £10 in diesel to collect it from Epsom. I agreed to pay the mechanic £150 to swap the gearboxes over, however in the end I gave him £200 to cover the additional buggeration factor. I'm a happy man.

The first replacement gearbox is scrap. It's been modified and its condition remains unknown. However, rather than throwing it away, I propose to open it up and see how the internal bits compare with those in my original gearbox. If I am lucky, it might be possible to salvage something from the replacement gearbox and fix the original one,  but that's something that I propose to leave for another day.

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  • Peter C changed the title to Mercedes W124 200E - Rolling Resto - PAS fluid changed

According to a classic car magazine that shall remain nameless, certain old Mercedes steering boxes feature a drain plug, which allows hassle free PAS oil changes. Sadly, my W124 does not benefit from this feature. Over the past few weeks, on numerous occasions I syphoned out fluid from the PAS reservoir and re-filled it with fresh ATF. The trouble is that every time I do this, I only get to change approx 50% of the fluid that is in the PAS system, with the other 50% left in the pipes and steering box. I managed to drain, refill and mix approx 600mm of fresh ATF.

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Earlier today I syphoned out the contents of one more reservoir.

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This time I also removed the PAS reservoir filter and got as much oil out as possible.

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I bought a genuine MB (made by Mann) PAS reservoir filter.

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I fitted the new filter and topped up the PAS reservoir with fresh ATF. I reckon that approx 75% of the oil is now new, which is not ideal, however I do not want to start removing the PAS pipes and attempt to drain more oil and in the process disturb or damage something that will cause more problems in the future.

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  • Peter C changed the title to Mercedes W124 200E - Rolling Resto - W123 Big Anniversary
  • Peter C changed the title to Mercedes W124 200E - Rolling Resto - Now in daily use but needs new exhaust

Right, as matters stand, my daily for the past 3 years Hyundai Tucson has gone back to the leasing company, the Audi TT that I bought and turned out to be a giant defective disappointment has been returned to the dealer I bought it from and my next lease car, a Kia Xceed, is not due to be delivered until the end of the month. This leaves me with the 200E, which is now being used for daily duties, with the W123 on stand-by, although technically I'd rather walk 25 miles to a work appointment than drive the W123 in the wet. Some cars are meant to be driven but not my W123.

The exhaust on the 200E is 29.5 years old and during my ownership the rear box has received at least three coats of silver Hammerite. 

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I noticed earlier this week that the exhaust has started to blow. I jacked the car up and investigated.

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A little prodding revealed a rotten back box, where the tailpipe joins the box. 

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I am now actively looking into purchase a new centre and rear box, however getting the right parts may not be easy. As a short term repair, I bought a tin of this stuff.

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Bearing in mind that all I am doing is sealing up holes in the tailpipe to box joint, hopefully the repair will last a couple of weeks. The tailpipe is quite short and it doesn't weigh much, so hopefully the remaining metal plus my repair will be strong enough to prevent it from falling off. The putty is good for 160 deg C, which is a lot more than the temperature of a fully warmed up back box. Once mixed with hardener, the putty had the consistency of chocolate sauce and is not the easiest product to apply. The repair is not pretty but having left it for an hour to harden, I can confirm that it feels solid as a rock and the exhaust is no longer blowing. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've returned the dreaded Audi TT to the dealer a couple of weeks ago and my newly leased Kia Exceed won't be with me until middle of next week. In the meantime, the 200E has been serving as a temporary daily that is being used for business (seen here parked outside Ascot Race Course):

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And pleasure (seen here taking my son and our mountain bikes to Bourne End marina):

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My exhaust repair seems to be doing ok, the rotted out back box remains silent. I've shopped around UK suppliers and found that a new rear box alone costs well over £100 whilst centre boxes are pretty much unavailable. The same goes for Autodoc in Germany. I extended my EBay search and found a company in Poland that offered a centre and rear box plus a fitting kit, including p&p, for £85.90. I bought it and it arrived yesterday:

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The old system, inspected when removed by the mechanic during the gearbox replacement saga:

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The section of pipe between the two boxes takes a slightly different route compared with my old system, however that should not be a problem providing that it doesn't bang on anything and everything else lines up. I won't be attempting to fit the new exhaust until my Kia is up and running, as I don't want to mess things up and end up without a useable car.

 

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36 minutes ago, bigfella2 said:

Even if autodoc had the exhaust in stock, they don't post exhausts to the UK, been there tried that.

Really? According to their website they will send to the UK subject to receipt of additional payment related to postage of oversized goods.

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21 hours ago, bigfella2 said:

Well if you know a way to do it, I would love to know for future reference.Screenshot_20201124-194957.thumb.png.1c70457e42dd62c4b2806c42144d98e4.png

Ok, evidently you must have taken matters a step further than me. I got as far as adding one part of the exhaust that I wanted to my basket, clicked into the checkout, noted the additional charge for p&p for large items but, because I could not get all the bits that I wanted, I did not proceed with the transaction. 

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These arrived today:


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I'm getting some bad knocking sounds from the front suspension, which I suspect is down to knackered shocks. I have replaced the ARB bushes (with genuine MB parts) and the top mounts are also new. There is no evidence of any play in the wishbone bushes and the 200E has now passed three MoTs in my ownership. 

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  • Peter C changed the title to Mercedes W124 200E - Rolling Resto - Now cleaned and retired for the winter

 

My new daily arrived this morning. See here: 

I took advantage of the cold but dry weather to give the 200E a proper deep clean this morning. I hosed out all the wheel arches and around the sills and left the car outside with the doors, bonnet and boot open for a good couple of hours and let everything dry properly. As the weather forecast starts to get worse by the day, I doubt the 200E will get much use in the near future. Either before or during Christmas I will replace the exhaust, front shocks, engine oil and filter and give the underside a good once over. 

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  • Peter C changed the title to Mercedes W124 200E - Rolling Resto - Winter restoration has begun

A week and a half since I got my new daily (Kia Exceed) and retired the 200E for the winter, I finally plucked up the courage to enter the garage and start work on the winter restoration.

I started by jacking the 200E up, high enough to get access but without compromising stability - the car will be supported on axle stands.

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Firstly, I removed the old exhaust system, which took all of 3 minutes. The two plastic boxes you can see in the photo above were supporting the rear section of the exhaust whilst I was separating the front part of the system from the catalytic converter. With the old exhaust removed and the new system placed alongside it, it looks like I've got a good match. Surprisingly, the new exhaust weighs about the same as the original MB one, which is a good sign. It will be a while before I install the new system though.

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The rear bumper had to come off. I wanted to check the metal hiding beneath and I wanted to straighten out the damaged chrome and sand and spray the black plastic part of the bumper, which had picked up various bumps and scratches (not during my ownership!).

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The bumper was easy to remove and the metal beneath it was sound but dirty. 

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Not that it matters and nobody will see it but I cleaned the rear panel. Come on, you'd have done the same!

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The chrome strip is attached to the bumper with about 15 clips, some of which looked a little rusty. I did not want to risk separating the chrome strip from the rest of the bumper because of the risk of it not going back on properly secured. Instead, I put some Gorilla glue into the join and left the strip clamped overnight.

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Before starting any repairs on the underside of the 200E, I first wanted to remove all plastic covers that could be hiding grot. I started by taking off the covers from the lower wishbones. I was pleasantly surprised to find factory fresh metal underneath.

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Then I removed a large cover that keeps the fuel pump and filter clean. Apart from a bit of surface rust around the front fixings, I didn't find anything to worry about.

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On the nearside of the floorpan, I removed another cover. This time I did find a little rot, which will need attention.

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I then removed the offside rear shock absorber. It came out quickly and silently. Whilst removing the nearside shock absorber I could hear horrible crunching sounds as I poked the metal above. With the shock absorber removed and the surface rust scraped off, fortunately I found solid metal. When I painted the inner wings a couple of years ago, I did so without removing the shock absorbers and therefore the small area of metal where the shock absorbers abut the structure of the car did not benefit from a clean and coat of paint. My bad. 

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Now these are off, they're not going back on the car. Fortunately, new rear shock absorbers do not cost much. Whilst it will be nice to have four new shock absorbers on the 200E, I quite like the floaty ride that the almost 30 year old shocks provide. About 10 years ago I fitted new (admittedly cheap - Trucktec) shock absorbers to my W123 230E and they transformed the ride from soft to rock hard. I put the old shock absorbers back on within 24 hours, returned the new ones to the supplier and till this day the car is still riding happily on the old shock absorbers. 

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More next week.

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  • Peter C changed the title to Mercedes W124 200E - Rolling Resto - Rust and welding and more rust....

I've made progress with the 200E and it's 50/50 good and bad news.

A couple of years ago I had the rear nearside inner wheel arch welded (where I found a great big rusty hole) and I was sure that the rest of the metal in the wheel wells was solid. As part of my investigations I started to poke the inner arches with a screwdriver and found this on the offside:

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Unfortunately, the nearside was even worse:

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The problem is the rubber caps. Water gets under the edges of the caps and over time it causes metal around the caps to rot away. I have arranged to have these three holes welded in January. Considering the amount of work that still needs doing on the 200E, the dreadful weather forecast for the festive season and the fact that I live bang slap in the middle of tier 4, it's not as if I would have a chance of driving the 200E anywhere soon.

I spent a good few hours scrapping off blistered underseal and surface corrosion to reveal plenty of ugly but solid metal.

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With the loose rust cleaned off, I put the rear wheels back on, pulled the 200E out of the garage and drove it onto ramps. With no exhaust from the cat back, the 200E sounded like a hemi V8 and with no shock absorbers fitted, the rear end misbehaved like a proper 70s muscle car. I gave the entire underside a good pressure clean with my Karcher washer.

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I then applied Kurust to every rusty bit of metal I could see. Unfortunately, all the photographs taken of the underside of the 200E came out too dark to share.

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Then all the same bits got a liberal coating of zinc primer.

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I propose to coat the floorpan and subframe with underseal and the wishbones, anti-roll bar and driveshafts with black / white Hammerite. 

In other news, I cleaned the plastic covers that protect the underside of the lower wishbones. I don't know what the yellowy deposits were but they would only come off with a wire brush, which left the surface of the plastic marked. Not to worry.

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The offside underside section of the rear bumper had a nasty scrape (not my doing). Whilst the scrape was not visible with the car perched on all four wheels, it still needed attending to. A good rub down got rid off the scratches and a squirt of paint restored factory finish.

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The gluing of the deformed chrome strip to the rear bumper plastic failed. To improve the appearance of the black bumper moulding, which had a few marks and bumps on it, I flattened the imperfections and cleaned off numerous layers of plastic beauty treatment products before masking off the rest of the bumper. Spraying the moulding black only accentuated the marks and bumps. I'll have to give it another go.

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More next week.

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  • Peter C changed the title to Mercedes W124 200E - Rolling Resto - Superhero came to the rescue...

I've made no progress with the 200E in the past few days due to Christmas and because I lacked motivation, knowing that I cannot finish the job until someone welds the three holes up for me. Superhero David (@Talbot) came to the rescue and offered to drive up to my place and weld up the holes.

He turned up with his £50 Lidl equipment.

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And begun by making the rust holes even bigger than they already were.

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Rather than welding patches over the old metal, David cut and bent repair sections into size and shape.

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And welded the bits into place.

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I then applied a squirt of zinc primer and filled the edges of the patches with chemical metal.

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The same process took place on the other side.

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David did an amazing job, especially as he had to work in a pokey and cold garage.

Superman can fly but David can do this. Thank you again David for your help and for charging me mates rates. 

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And the cause of all these problems? These little rubber plugs, which encourage corrosion that spreads throughout the inner arches.

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I'm hoping to make more progress tomorrow.

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1 hour ago, Peter C said:

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Well, do ya?  Punk?

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Hang on... wrong movie reference.

 

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Well be careful, that'll give you arc-eye if you do it for more than a brief moment.

 

A relatively straight-forward few repairs.   The one in the offside rear arch was a hybrid of let-in and overlap due to the access.  Then in the Nearside arch there's one patch and one let-in.  Worked fairly well in the end, and will look fine once painted.  As always, 90% cut out and fabrication, 10% actual welding.

1 hour ago, Peter C said:

£50 Lidl equipment.

I can say with medium certainty that a gassless flux-core welder would have "blown merry shit" out of the parent metal in this case.  I was probably down at about 15-20 amps maximum and even then it was still a bit on the hot side (but better that than a cold weld).  Had it been a cosmetic weld I would likely have taken a bit longer getting the repair section fit absolutely spot-bollock-on, but for the location of the repair these will be fine, and hopefully very long-lasting.

Good to meet you today Peter.  And no, it's not a superpower... it's just electric pritt-stick (© catsinthewelder, 2017)

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1 hour ago, Isaac Hunt said:

 Very neat.  

Kind of you to say so.

If I'm completely honest, it's not my neatest fabrication and welding.  There were two things against me on this:  Time, and the location of two of the holes.  You can see in the nearside wheelarch that both the existing patch above mine and my one on the left bridge over a seam.  This is a complete pain, as there is of course seam sealant rammed hard down into that seam which is almost impossible to remove.  If time wasn't an issue, that seam could have been ground out with a Welshman (Dai Grinder) and a repair section made to exactly match the original metal.  Made even more complex as the seam isn't straight at the bottom, meaning it would have to be a complex pressed part.  Of course, we didn't have time for that, so as there was already a bridging patch in that arch, another one didn't seem like the worst thing to do.  You can see the soot-stain from where the seam-sealant caught fire as I welded close to it.

The repair section in the offside arch is a bit better, as I was able to stop at the seam, cut the spot-welds and use the same line as the original seam for the vertical weld.  I might have liked to get the repair section to sit as a butt-weld all the way around, but access to get a grinder in to the vertical behind the wheelarch lip was severely restricted, so an overlap had to do.

The right-hand one in the nearside arch is definitely the "best" of the three.  Butt-welded to the existing panel, and taken up to a seam where possible.  I could possibly have ground the welds down fractionally further, but the light for the day was gone, and with a healthy splot of zinc primer and topcoat on it, it'll never be noticeable.

It also didn't help matters that the patch material I was using was probably a bit overkill, meaning shaping it exactly was nearly impossible.  Strong though!

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4 hours ago, doug said:

@Peter C Have you checked the jacking points yet? I might have a couple of repair panels for them if required for the cost of post .

A very kind offer, thank you. My jacking points are ok for now but it would be useful to have a spare. 

Please message me payment details.
 

 

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IMHO those repairs are of a high standard for an inner wheel arch tub repair.  They will be strong and can easily be further tidied with a bit of filler and seam sealer.  A couple of coats of thick red oxide and some brush painted colour over the top and your going to be hard pushed to spot the repair.

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