October night drive to Palm Beach

Over the last couple of months I have been doing a monthly night drive with a few friends in the Mercedes Club. This month was the first time it was an official event. When they were unofficial we did drives such as the Old Pacific Highway, the Old Northern Road and down to Bulli. This time we did a night drive to Palm Beach. Turn out was pretty good given it had been pouring with rain for the last week. We had 9 cars show up to the drive.

I took my 560SEC this time. As well as my […]

W126 power rear seat top trim

An obvious issue on my 560SEL was how the rear seat was mounted. There was an obvious gap between the parcel shelf and the rear seat. The 560SEL came standard with a W126 power rear seat. This either standard or optional on other W126 LWB models. It seemed clear that when the self-leveling rear suspension was removed, the trim was not put back correctly.

On a car without the power rear seat, the backrest is fixed into position so there is no need for an additional trim piece. On a car with the W126 power rear seat, there is a […]

M117 Fan clutch

The other day I was driving my 560SEL on a fairly hot (30C) day in heavy traffic. The engine temperature got quite warm when sitting in traffic. It was well over 100C in traffic, which would eventually cool down when I got moving. The car didn’t overheat, but I did hear coolant boiling in the radiator hose after I finished the drive.

While the temperature itself is well within spec, given the day wasn’t really that hot compared to days in the mid 40s we get here in Sydney, I wanted to do something about it. Additionally, the air conditioning […]

W126 Monovalve eliminator – part 4

I have now completed the installation of the Movovalve elimination kit on my 560SEC. So far so good. Most importantly, I don’t have heat when I don’t want it, but it is available when needed. In the last installment, I completed the routing of the cooling hoses. From there I installed the radiator and ensured the cooling system didn’t have any leaks. The final step was to set up the vacuum solenoid so it could control the heater valve.

The very rough diagram below outlines how I adapted the kit for the W126. Note the diagram is not to scale […]

Rear brake fluid leak on my 450SLC

I’ve used my 450SLC on a few spirited drives lately. With the new injectors its been running really nicely. However, on the way back from the most recent night drive, the pedal became really spongey on the way home. Luckily it was late at night with few cars on the road so I was able to drive it home gently.

The next day I had a quick look under the car. I noticed there was a lot of brake fluid on the drives side rear tyre. Looks like I had a rear brake fluid leak on my 450SLC.

I […]

Installing a W126 radiator

Today’s job was installing a W126 radiator into my 1987 560SEC. I had previously sorted out the cooling hoses as part of my monovalve eliminator install. I was just waiting on a few extra parts I had ordered to begin this job.

Firstly I decided to replace the coolant reservoir tank. My current one is not leaking, but the plastic was quite discoloured and looked a bit white around the hose entry. Genuine Mercedes coolant reservoirs are still quite inexpensive, and you never know how long that will continue. Best to change it now. I was already planning to replace […]

500 posts on classicjalopy.com

The most recent post about the W126 cowl covers was the 500th post on this website. I started the site in May of 2013 when I was doing a lot of work on my Citroen DS. I had recently purchased the car and was fixing some of the problems with the car, installing a new radio and later re-upholstering it. At that time I never thought it would still be going 7 years later and with over 500 posts.

At the time, I wasn’t really concerned with how many views I got as I really created the site more for […]

Replacing W126 cowl covers

I had previously removed the W126 cowl covers to clean the drains. Now they are clean and I have replaced the ABS module bracket, they were ready to be re-installed.

Before I did so, I had some new parts to install. The first were the rubber boots that cover the windscreen wiper shafts. On most W126 cars they are almost non existent. On my 560SEC, I had the remains of one, and the other was completely gone. The picture below shows the two new boots along with the remains of what was left on my car.

Second was the rubber […]