A practical guide for the 1972 W108 280SE 3.5 — with fewer rabbits to chase By John Tawadros There is nothing quite like driving a smooth-running, high-compression 3.5-litre M116 V8 with a properly functioning Bosch D-Jetronic system. Conversely, driving one that isn’t running properly can be an exercise in frustration, despair and other distinctly first-world problems. This is the story of how I diagnosed...
Previously I had removed the door cards on my Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas to fit new door mirrors and speakers. The material of the door cards was still in good condition, however the backing boards were almost totally disintegrated. Given there were a few edges where it was starting to come apart, I wanted to repair this before the original material was damaged. This...
A week or so ago I was returning from a family event in my 300TE. My son in the middle seat in the rear and my two daughters on either side. Out of nowhere, the dulcet tones from the Becker radio were interrupted by flatulence so powerful it could have been measured on the Richter scale. The source quickly revealed itself when my two...
The big annual car show was on again at Eastern Creek raceway on Sunday. I always try to make a point of going if I can. Not only do you get to see some interesting cars, but my kids enjoy the double decker bus rides around the track as well as the parade lap in the car. Unfortunately this year, while the week leading...
Our July 2026 Night drive was back to go through the Royal National Park and old Princes Highway. We last attempted this route in January 2024, although some road closures meant we didn’t go into the national park so much. After battling bad weather the first half of the year, this month was a lovely winter evening. I took my 1978 450SE and was...
Our June night drive was a bit different to the normal plan. Normally we would do a drive that’s about 90 minutes in Sydney’s outskirts. This time, we did a much shorter drive and went to a Dessert truck instead. The May and July drives were scheduled to be quite long, so the idea was to break that up a bit and provide some...
Previously, I had attempted to install the Bluetooth enabled Radiomobile 8 track into my Daimler. I got the radio test installed, but the sound quality was pretty terrible. During the last part, I tried various things to work out what was going on. I ruled out the power supply, speaker wiring through using different combinations of speakers, the Bluetooth module and more. The final...
In my last entry, I replaced the speakers in my Daimler. I now had four working speakers. It was actually sounding pretty decent through the old Pioneer. I still needed to replace it. The CD eject mechanism didn’t really work properly, and it looked terrible in the dash. Replacing the radio wasn’t so simple. The Daimler Double-Six Vanden Plas came as standard with a...
This weekend I was down in Jindabyne. My family had been down there skiing for two weeks during the school holidays. I had other commitments so wasn’t able to join – but went down for the final weekend in the W124 Friday evening. On the Saturday, the kids wanted a day off skiing, so I decided to take them to the Cooma Car Museum. ...
In order to change the door mirrors on my Daimler Double-Six, I had the front door cards off. This seemed like a good time to replace the speakers, which are in the doors. The car is fitted with an early 2000s era Pioneer CD player, connected to the original speakers. However, only one and a half of them is working, and the Pioneer is...
I’ve noticed a small drip of diesel under the engine of my 240D after I park it. On further inspection, it looked like there was a leak around #4 injector. It was running down the engine block and dripping on the ground. It looked like the return hose from #4 to #3 was quite wet. Replacing the return hoses seemed a good place to...
In the 70s, it was quite common for cars to only have a door mirror on the drivers side. My Daimler had this arrangement. From what I understand it was possible to order the car with one on each side, that wasn’t something my original owner chose. This is something I was very keen to add to my car. Traffic in Sydney is heavy...
Today was the monthly St Ives ‘Autobrunch’ Cars and Coffee event. As seems to be usual this year in Sydney, it was forecast to be a rainy day. I decided to go anyway as it as only forcast for isolated showers starting from about 10am. This month I took my Citroen DS. I’m glad I did as quite a few other DS owners had...
In 1886, Karl Benz was granted a patent for his Motorwagon. This would become the first car, and be the origins of Mercedes-Benz. 2026 is the 140 year anniversary of the company and the car. Mercedes-Benz are therefore running a promotional event to mark this occasion, as well as the launch of the new S-Class. From what I understand, the event takes the new...
My wife’s S212 was in a minor accident earlier this year. For the last week or so, it has been at the panel beaters. Since she was without a car, she has been using my 124, since it is my most modern car. I’m very tall and she is average height, so had to put the seat forward. That was fine until I wanted...
I had noticed that when I used my Daimler, about 10 minutes after driving the car and shutting off the engine, it would drip coolant onto the ground. At first this was just a couple of drips. After the long drive to Oberon I noticed a decent trickle and then a week after that quite a puddle. That was quite concerning. Being an all-alloy...
Today is National Motoring Heritage Day (NMHD) for 2026. It is held each year on the 3rd Sunday in May. The idea behind it is for all the national car clubs to organize an event on the same day so the public see historic vehicles out and about. This is presumably to promote the motoring hobby and showcases the depth of interest in it....
After a long drive, my 560SEL would leave a puddle of coolant under the car. The puddle wasn’t from the front, it was from the rear of the engine. The most obvious thing here was heater hoses, but I let the car get nice and hot put the heater on and there was no leakage. The next step was to run a coolant pressure...
My Daimler Double-Six, along with all Series 1 XJ’s and derivatives has four gauges in the centre of the dashboard above the rocker switches. These are: Voltage Oil Pressure Water Temperature Fuel They had all stopped working and I wanted to get them to work again, especially the water temperature one. I quickly ruled out a blown fuse, as many other things in the...
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