Follow me on Blogarama

Fuelly
Fuelly
Fuelly
Fuelly
Fuelly
Fuelly
Fuelly

Choosing tyres for my 15×7 AMG Penta wheels

My new 15″ AMG Penta wheels did not come with tyres. Choosing a set turned out to be a lot more complicated than I thought.

The big downside of the 15s over the 16s is the tyre availability. The table below outlines possible sizes I could have considered. They are all compared to the overall circumference of the original wheel/tyre combination.

Tyre SizeRevs per KMDifference 205/70 R14496Standard 205/65 R15492+0.8% 205/60 R15508- 2.4% 215/65 R15482+ 2.8% 215/60 R15498- 0.4% 225/60 R15489+ 1.2% 225/55 R15506- 2.4% 235/55 R15498- 0.4%

The easiest and most obvious choice would have been one of the 205 […]

September 29th, 2021 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Mercedes | Leave a comment

Guest Post: W126 parking brake shoes

I purchased my 1989 420SEL about two years ago and have been busy doing a lot of work to the car to bring it up to my standard. My most recent job was to inspect and replace the W126 parking brake shoes. The parking brake was not holding the car, even after I adjusted it. The Mercedes W126 uses a separate set of drum brake shoes that act on the inside of the brake disc for the parking brake.

Last weekend I started the job, and at first it was pretty easy. The wheel and caliper was off in no […]

September 28th, 2021 | Tags: , , , | Category: Guest Articles, Mercedes | Leave a comment

16″ AMG Aero I wheels for my 560SEC

When I purchased my 1987 560SEC it came with Simmons B45 Wheels. These are a high quality Australian made three piece wheel. I pretty quickly replaced these for a couple of reasons. The 245 profile tyres rubbed quite badly; There was a terrible wheel wobble; and I didn’t think the suited the car. I sold those wheels and replaced them with the replica 8 hole wheels I had on my 450SLC at the time. I only saw those wheels as a temporary solution. They look good, but I still didn’t think they were quite right for the car. I started […]

September 22nd, 2021 | Tags: , , | Category: Mercedes | 5 comments

M272 Camshaft position sensors

When you own a modern Mercedes-Benz, you seem to be playing constant whack-a-mole with the check engine light. I’ve written before how silly I think the check engine light is, but we’re stuck with it. Personally, I would just drive older cars, but this is not for everyone and my wife has a 2007 E350 Wagon. There were two codes this time.

The first set of codes were complaining about the correlation of the camshaft and the crankshaft on one bank. I had previously changed the magnetic actuators, which temporarily fixed the problem. If the car didn’t sit outside the […]

September 18th, 2021 | Tags: , | Category: Mercedes | One comment

15″ AMG ‘Penta’ wheels for my 450SLC

I’ve been on the lookout for a different set of wheels for my 450SLC. It is currently running a set of W126 second generation alloy wheels. I like these wheels, but they are not quite right for the 450SLC. My 560SEL uses these same wheels, but they are in need of refinishing. Instead of having some of my spare W126 wheels refinished, I thought I would get a different set of wheels for the 450SLC and use the refinished W126 wheels on the 560SEL.

I thought of a few options for the SLC.

Standard 14″ Steel wheels with colour matched […]

September 17th, 2021 | Tags: , , | Category: Mercedes | 4 comments

BM2 Battery Monitor

A couple of months ago a friend showed me his BM2 Battery Monitor installed on his 420SEL. It is a bluetooth enabled battery monitor that connects to a phone app. The app lets you monitor the battery in real time, run some tests and download history from the battery monitor device.

I already have various battery testers which are useful for standalone battery testing. However, I didn’t have a good way of checking the overall charging system of the cars. In particular, I have seen some strange behavior with the radios in my 250SE and Citroen DS that may be […]

September 7th, 2021 | Tags: | Category: Misc | One comment

560SEL front suspension rebuild

This week I got my 560SEL back from having a front suspension rebuild. This wasn’t something I really wanted to take on myself. My SEL drove well, but there was some looseness in the front end. As I plan on keeping the car long term, it made sense to rebuild the front suspension to restore an as-new ride.

The front suspension rebuild included new upper control arms and associated bushings, lower control arm bushings and sway bar bushings. I went with genuine for the upper control arms and Lemforder for the lower control arm bushings. The genuine parts are expensive, […]

September 5th, 2021 | Tags: , , | Category: Mercedes | One comment