It looked like the return hose from #4 to #3 was quite wet. Replacing the return hoses seemed a good place to start.  I don’t know how old they were, and the are a common place for small diesel leaks.   I ordered a metre worth of new hose.

The hoses push on, so this is a pretty simple job.  I had some left over, so a metre would be sufficient for a five cylinder as well.  The only small complication is around the #3 cylinder which is obscured by the throttle linkage mechanism.    I also want to check if the setup at the end of the 4th cylinder is correct, as it was a totally different hose type.

After fitting the new hoses, I let the car idle for about 15 minutes and I still had a bit of wetness around #4, so I need to investigate that final hose with the cap on the end as my next port of call.

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From what I understand, the event takes the new S Class to 140 different locations around the world.  The two cars had various stickers from some of the locations where they had been.  They were in Melbourne last week and will be in Brisbane next week.

The Mercedes-Benz club of NSW was asked to help participate in this event.   The idea was to try and get 140 cars in a convoy to cross the harbour bridge together.  This is a pretty tall ask.  The plan was to get two groups, The S-Classes (and predecessors) and the other Mercedes-Benz cars.

The task wasn’t made easier by the weather.  It has been cold and rainy the last week.  Rain was forecast for the day.  The finish point was supposed to be Gough Whitlam Park, where the club hold the German Car show.  However Gough Whitlam park closes if somebody wrings out a towel nearby, so they had to scramble to find alternative arrangements, which were found in Bass Hill.

I thought club members did very well to put on a strong showing for the day given these challenges.   What struck me was the variety.   There was a really good selection of classic and modern Mercedes-Benz models.   There were even good showings of models that are rarely seen at club events like the W140.  While I probably missed a few, I counted about 80 cars:

• Classic S Class and Predecessors (26) – W111 (4), W108 (3), W116 (7), W126 (7), W140 (5)
• Classic Other Mercedes Benz (26) – W100, R/C107 (8), W110, W113, W114 (3), W123 (3), W124 (7), W463
• Modern Mercedes-Benz (30)
• New S Class (2)

I took my 250SE Cabriolet. I took two of my kids along, and gave a ride to a friend from Queensland who was visiting for the event.  We opened the roof and managed to do the entire event roof open.  Luckily, we only hit a bit of rain five minutes from home.

We started at Macquarie university, which was a good meeting point. It took a while to leave the carpark and the kids and I were starting to wondering if the new S Class had broken down.  Luckily that turned out not to be the case.    The original plan was to have the S Classes and predecessors go, and then the other cars to follow 15 minutes later.  This didn’t happen and they left right after.  I’m not sure that it was necessarily a bad thing.

The challenge with such a distance to the bridge was that everyone was spread out a lot by the time we got there, so the visual impact wasn’t nearly so great.  I was behind a Prado by the time I crossed it.

The finishing spot was pretty good, and they had snacks and drinks there.  We all got a gift bag with some nice goodies, including a rather excellent grille badge.  I was quite keen to put it on my 250SE when I got home, but it doesn’t fit in the thin mesh of the W111 grille.  So I’ll probably end up putting it on a different car.

For me, the big attraction of the event was the 140 years thing, and the large number of club cars out on the day.   The new S Class doesn’t hold a great deal of interest.  It’s not really my cup of tea, I find the hundreds of small Mercedes-Benz logos all over it rather tacky.  It’s better than the GLS though.   Considering the success of models like the W126, the S Class sells in tiny numbers in Australia now.  It is largely driven by China where SUVs do not have the cachet of a large sedan.  On that front, I think they have it right.

The kids and I enjoyed the event and having a day out in the 250SE.   That afternoon I also took the car to visit the son of the original owner, who picked it up from Stuttgart in October 1965.  The strange coincidence is that he lives literally 210 meters from my house and has been that close since I moved there in 2014.

The post Mercedes 140 Years, 140 Places event appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

The normal front and back movement didn’t work at all.  The height adjustment lever on the side of the seat worked, but it only did so much.  I still could hardly drive the car in that position.  Not much good owning a car if you can’t sit in it or drive it.

Even with somebody else pulling from the rear, the seat wasn’t going to move.  There isn’t a lot of room but I was able to see how the mechanism worked.   The tracks on both sides have teeth and the seat can only move when the fingers retract.  The lever is on the inner side of the seat.   It directly pushes on the mechanism on that side to move the fingers.   It is then connected to a bar further back which rotates and moves a lever on the other side that moves the fingers there.  I could see how it worked, and the fingers were moving, but it didn’t seem like enough.  It seemed to be worse on the inner side, which was odd since that side is actuated directly by the lever.

Comparing to the passengers seat, that mechanism seemed to move more.  I tried to use various screwdrivers and pry tools to make the fingers move more.  I was able to get them move more, but the seat didn’t want to budge. Since the seat wouldn’t move, I couldn’t take it out either.

I posted about my problem on the W124 facebook group.  I had a few useful replies, but more helpfully a friend from the Mercedes club saw my post and called me offering to help.  That was very much appreciated and so today I went over to him to look at the car.   He also had a spare W124 seat on the bench that we could compare to.

We spent quite a lot of time trying to make the seat move, using the other seat to compare to.   Given our lack of success, it became apparent that the seat was going to have to come out.  Since it was already quite far forward, we could get the rear bolts out pretty easily.   It took quite a lot of effort to finally get the seat to move back so we could remove the front bolts.

Once the seat was out, it was immediately apparent why it was jammed.  The metal had broken at the end of lever right near the pivot point.  That meant when you pull the lever, instead of pivoting, it was just moving away from the seat mechanism. That meant the fingers could never move enough.

Luckily, my friend was able to weld it up for me.    As soon as it was welded, immediately the mechanism was working as it should have been.  While the seat was out, we also lubricated the tracks.  With the mechanism welded, and the tracks lubricated, the seat moved really well.

Getting the seat back in was pretty straightforward, although we found it was much easier to start with the rear bolts.   With the track working and lubricated, it was quite easy to get the seat back in.   It was great to have some help for this.  I never would have been able to repair it on my own.

The post W124 stuck drivers seat appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

The next step was to run a coolant pressure test, so I bought a cheap kit from Temu and ran it.  It was pretty easy to get coolant to leak, from that same location.   Looking from under the car, it looked it was running down the side of the engine block.   I wasn’t sure the exact location – perhaps a core plug or something like that?

I took the car into my mechanic for him to look further and he came back that the leak was from the intake manifold.  The coolant would leak out in the valley of the V8 and then pool in there, and then slowly run down the side of the engine block.

I didn’t want to drive the car much like that.  Overheating an alloy engine is a good way of destroying it.  While the leak wasn’t huge, it could get worse.   So late last year, I parked the car up and started to order the parts.

While the leak was coming from the main gaskets between the intake manifold and the heads, there are a lot of other parts that should be replaced at the same time. Consulting the EPC, I came up with the following list:

• 117 141 2480 – Left Side Intake Gasket – Genuine NLA, Victor Reinz
• 117 141 2580 – Right Side Intake Gasket – as above
• 117 140 0265 x8 – Rubber sealing rings, Genuine
• 126 430 2029 – Rubber vacuum line – I couldn’t find this in the end
• 116 090 0882 – Idle Air hose – Genuine
• 116 997 1286 x4 – Plug for air distribution hose, MTC
• 102 094 0212 – Cap for air hose – Genuine
• 117 990 1278 – Air line
• 116 094 2582 x2 – Air distribution hose – Genuine
• 000 000 001448 x2 – Bolt
• 000 912 008066 x3 – Bolt
• 000 912 008063 x10 – Bolt
• 000 912 008060 x4 – Bolt – couldn’t locate this one
• 117 094 0982 – Hose
• 116 140 0618 – Air flow boot, genuine

Not that is is my list, I would not take this as the definitive guide.

My mechanic suggested that it was better to get new bolts, if I could. I was able to get most of them.  I wasn’t sure if he would need the air flow boot, but I got one because they are still available new.  It seemed like a good thing to have on hand even if he didn’t need it.

It was a while before we could get the car scheduled, so I hardly drove it while I waited to the job, just the odd short trip to keep things going.

I bought the car from the original owner, and he didn’t think the heads had ever been off.  This seemed to be the case looking at how the intake manifold came off.  Not bad after almost 350,000km.   In my case, the reason we did the job was coolant, but this job is commonly also done due to vacuum leaks due to the rubber sealing rings.

There were no real issues with the job, and it was clear where the coolant had been leaking from the old gaskets.

The car is now back and driving very well again. Its possible there were minor vacuum leaks from the old parts, although I wasn’t aware of any.

The post M117 Intake manifold gaskets appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

Given the earlier roofs are far more reliable, I’m not sure the tilting feature is really worth the effort.   The broken arms got all jammed up in the mechanism, and since the roof lining was already out for the roof racks, it was easier to drop the whole sunroof cassette.

Unlike on the W126, the genuine lifting arms were still available for the W124.  However, to get both sides would cost over USD$600, before GST and delivery.  While I prefer to use genuine parts where I can, I couldn’t justify it.  There are quite a few aftermarket options, of varying quality.  The ones from China were much cheaper, but I’ve not heard good things about them.  In the end I went with an AIN kit, that looks like it came from Turkey.  It cost about USD$200 including delivery and GST.

When it arrived it looked quite good quality and was made from metal.  Comparing it against the old one it seemed to fit quite well.   This didn’t solve the complete problem.  Even with the new lifting arms, the sunroof was still binding. In the end, the issue turned out to be a broken rivet in the rails.  This was causing one of the rails to sit a few mm higher than it should.  Its probably why the original lifting arms broke.

The final part was the bracket that holds the sunroof cable to the sunroof had broken.  This is part 126 782 01 40 and is still available new.  It was USD$16 before shipping and GST.   I was also missing a rubber insert for the bumper on the left side – part number 124 885 05 23 which was also $16.  I was lucky to be missing that side, as the right hand side seems to be NLA, although aftermarket parts seem to be available, but more expensive.

Those were the last parts required and from there it was re-assembly.  The repairer made sure to use lots of sealant for the rear windows so water couldn’t get in under the new seals. I’ve now collected the car and it looks great, better than ever.

The post w124 crash repair – sunroof repair appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

In 2022 they had a car representing every year from 1950 to 2022.  In 2024 they did generations of the S-Class. They also did an AMG display one year, but I wasn’t able to make it.  This year the theme was 50 years of the W123.  Given the theme, I took my 1981 240D.   This is the second trip my 240D has made to Canberra this year, as I also attended the 50 years of the W123 event in January.

I’ve always enjoyed this event, there are normally a good variety of cars.  The last few times i’ve been it was held at Queanbeyan showground.  However, from what I hear, Queanbeyan council are not as friendly to car clubs as they once were, so its was moved to Canberra.   The new location is Thoroughbred Park, which is a horseracing track in Lyneham.

I had refuelled my 240D at $1.879 on the days the pointless war in the middle east started.  My goal was to get there and back on one tank and have fuel to spare since diesel is almost at $3 per litre.   I left Saturday afternoon and ending up driving through quite a big hail storm near Marulan.  There was so much hail on the grass beside the highway it looked like it had been snowing.   The W123 is made of thick steel, so I didn’t encounter any damage.

The Wheels event was held in the customer parking area and some parks nearby, not on the actual track.  Lyneham is a central location, and easier than Queanbeyan showground, but there is far less room.   In previous events the ACT club has been able to spread out and make a really good display.   This year the space allocated was quite small and the cars were all jammed in.

Nevertheless the club attempted to show off the W123s by having a ‘fan out’ display in the middle of the allocated area.  It worked reasonably well, but would have ben better with more space.  There were quite a few cars that had to park outside the main area.  The issue seemed more allocation than lack of space in general, as there was a big paddock behind the military vehicles that was mostly empty.

As with the W123 event, I was parked next to the 300D in 476 Goldbraun.  Such a great colour and a car that has been in the owners family since 1981.   There was a good selection of nine W123s including a coupe, a wagon, and all the popular models (280E, 230E, 300D etc).

In addition to the W123s the ACT club also had a nice selection of other cars, starting with a pair of nice roundies, a lovely red finnie, a beautiful W111 3.5 coupe, a W109 a couple of W116s, W126s W124s etc.  It was a pretty good selection of all the major models of Mercedes-Benz.

As for the other marques, space seemed to be a bit of a challenge for the too.  The BMW display only had a couple of classics.  The new ones are all nostrils and a bit hard on the eye.  Getting past those, there were some really nice and interesting cars on display.  This included a huge American convertible with a folding metal roof.  the rear of the car was very long to allow it to be stowed away.  There were interesting curiosities like a Stanley steamer, a couple of Bristols and a pair of landcrab utes.   The Jaguar section was quite good.  There was a lovely Series 1 XJ6 with a manual transmission and a red interior.  While white isn’t my favorite colour, a red interior and a manual transmission makes it very tempting.  The red XJC was also very nice.

They didn’t just have regular cars, there were also military vehicles and micro cars.   The Microcars were quite good.

The ACT club had a catered lunch which was a nice touch.  The food at these sort of events is normally pretty bad and overpriced.  Sandwiches and fruit from the club was a far better option.

The drive back was pretty uneventful.  I arrived back late afternoon after covering 610km with abut a quarter of a tank left.  I’m still undecided if I should refuel the 240D now, or park it for a few weeks to see what happens.  Most of my other cars are full and I don’t really fancy $3 diesel.

The post Wheels 2026 ACT appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

Once all the rust was repaired, the next step was obviously paint. Since the whole car was not being resprayed, just the rear quarters and roof the colour had to be blended in. The goal wasn’t to get my car perfect, but to fix any rust and get it looking really good without the expense of a full respray.

While most of the work is in the preparation, it’s when the colour goes on that the car is really transformed. Seeing how much better it was looking when I visited made a big difference.

The car looks really sleek without the roof racks and rubbing strips on the roof.  However, I do plan to put it back to the stock look.

The bumper was painted separately and will go on later.  One of the things that attracted me to this car at the time of purchase was the colour – 888 Beryll.  Its a great colour and looks so much better without the badly faded roof.   By 1990 it was getting rarer for a Mercedes-Benz to be sold in an interesting colour.

I was also impressed with the red XJC parked under the hoist next to my 300TE.  I’m a big fan of the XJC, and red is a great colour for one.

The post W124 crash repair – rust repair and repaint appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

While I was aware of the rust traps in the S124 rear window design, I wasn’t prepared for how bad the rust would be would be without any real external evidence.  I’m really glad I did this repair now, as while it was bad, it was still very much repairable.

Both sides were pretty bad with one slightly worse.   The challenge is that if any water gets under the seal, there is nowhere for it to go.   It sits and rusts away the metal under the seal.  The low point seems to be at the front of the aperture, although there was some rusting at the rear.

Fixing the rust was going to be more effort than I had planned, but at l was getting it repaired all at once.  It would have been quite a shame to fix one side only.

Preparing the roof for paint was more effort than I had hoped.  The strips on the roof are just attached with adhesive.  But the actual roof racks require the headlining to come down.  Seeing the strips off the roof showed how badly the paint had faded from original, the main reason why I was having the roof repainted.

The post W124 crash repair – disassembly and rear window rust appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

The most obvious part was the rear bumper.  Mine was cracked in a few places.  My repairer said worst case it could probably be repaired, but we would get a much better result with a good second hand bumper.  The wagon bumper is different to the sedan.  They are now no longer available new and not easy to find second hand.

After a few calls, I found a friend in Melbourne had one.  It was in good shape, but missing the impact strip.  This wasn’t a big deal for me, as the insert (called the rail, rear bumper in the EPC) is still available new from Mercedes-Benz (124 885 07 21) and cost USD$200.   The cover from my existing bumper was good enough to repaired.

I also needed a few more parts.  The right hand side rear quarter needed to be repainted.  Therefore, I needed the seal for the rear fixed window to the cargo area.  This was still available new (124 670 20 39) and cost USD$160.  This is a very complicated seal which also holds a metal strip in place.  The aftermarket seals don’t have the best reputation so I was very happy to be able to get it new.

Since I needed to have the rear quarter repainted as part of the repair, I also opted to pay my repairer extra to paint the roof and the left quarter.  I therefore also purchased the left window seal (124 670 19 39) out of my own pocket.  Interestingly it was no longer available new, but I managed to get a new one from one of those Benz parts sellers from Latvia.   Due to this, It cost about USD$250.

I would encourage anyone who has a 124 wagon who has never removed the rear windows to get a set of those genuine seals while they are still available.  The biggest design flaw in the 124 wagon is the rust traps behind the seals of these windows.

In addition, there was a small crack on one of my taillights.  The wagon tail lights are also no longer available,  but I managed to find a second hand unit for the right hand side.   My left hand unit wasn’t that great, so I also purchased on myself for the left so they would match.   The new old stock seal was more expensive than the actual light!

The post W124 crash repair – parts required appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

I think the club made a good choice to hold the rally outside Sydney.  Sydney is no place for a car event   Terrible traffic, expensive parking etc.   A regional centre is a much better choice.

I didn’t do the whole rally but when the club announced they would offer day passes, I decided to go up for the Saturday.   The events on that day were much more in line with my interests than some of the other days.   The programme was to a convoy lap around Mt Panorama, led by former racing driver Colin Bond.   Then a show and shine at pit lane, followed by a tour of the Bathurst racing museum.

I decided it would be a perfect day to take my 250SE Cabriolet and two of my kids wanted to join me.   We left early, departing home at twenty to six, as the start of the guided lap was 9:30.  It was absolutely perfect weather for a convertible after weeks of hot and muggy weather in Sydney.

Complicating things were the surge in petrol prices due to yet another pointless middle east war, plus the structural failure of the convict built Victoria Pass, the main road over the blue mountains from Sydney.   I would have normally taken bells line of road anyway, as I detest the great western highway.  However the media were predicting it to be a parking lot.   Turns out it was totally overblown and the traffic was even less than normal.   We used the extra 20 minutes for a pitstop at McDonalds Lithgow.

Coming out of Lithgow, all of sudden i heard something, like there was something on the road that had hit the underside of the car.   I figured perhaps a stone or something like that.  Nothing else seemed to be amiss.  However, going around the next corner i realized I no longer had power steering.  Water temperature and the charge light were both fine, so it looked like I had lost my power steering belt.

Since there wasn’t much I could do by the side of the road, I proceeded to Bathurst.  The car was perfectly drivable, but with increased steering effort.   Lower speed and tighter turns were obviously a lot more effort.

We arrived at the Rally at 9:35AM, perfect timing as the convoy was just assembling for the lap of the track.  We joined up the rear behind a 420SE.   It was quite a cool sight driving behind over 100 Mercedes-Benz around the track.  We ended up doing four laps as it took quite a while for the cars earlier in the convoy to get into pit lane and parked.   The extra laps certainly gave my arms a good workout.

I was surprised how many of the cars were moderns, I had assumed more classics would attend.   I’m not sure if it was due to the fuel prices, or that is what people planned all along.  Certainly I am sure that some people dropped out altogether and I’m sure more would have come up from Sydney from the day too.  Having said that, while the prices are very high, they are not substantially higher than they have been over the last couple of years.  I filled the 250SE up at 2.539 per liter, and looking at my fuel log, it was only 10c less than this at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

As well as all the moderns, there were some nice classics on display from interstate.  My favorite was a Horizon Blue 280SE W116 from Queensland.  Apparently it had been in long term family ownership and it’s a real credit to the family for keeping it in such nice original condition.     Not too many older cars, although a couple of roundies had come in from interstate which was awesome.

There were some new MBs on display.  Chief among them was a massive Maybach SUV.   I don’t see the appeal at all.  To my eyes, it was tacky and overdone and more of a conveyance for footballers and rappers to be seen in than anything else.  I would have the blue 280SE any day of the week.

It was also good to catch up with a few interstate members that I know at this event.

Lunch was at a food truck near the event which was overpriced and had a massive wait. The quality wasn’t worth the wait either. I would have thought the day pass should have included lunch, as it wasn’t cheap.

After lunch we went to the museum which is quite good.  I covered this more extensively for Youngtimer Sacco day 2024.  The tour back then was more comprehensive, at the Rally it was more of an introduction to the museum.   There are some very interesting cars there and its well worth a visit.

We left at roughly 3:30PM.   As with our arrival, the traffic from Lithgow to Darling Causeway was less than normal, so we made good time, finding more traffic through Dural and Pennant Hills than the area with road closures.  Taking the W111 through these roads sans power steering certainly gave my arms a good workout.   We arrived home at around 7PM after covering 472km for the day.

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