In recent years a nice 560SL is going for 3-4x the price of other R107s. They have always been the most valuable of the series, but are they worth the extra money? I would argue they are not event he the best model of the series. They might be the newest, and have the largest engine, but that doesn’t make them the best....
The saga of my non functional A/C is now over. The 300SE is blowing cold air. It would want to after all the parts I had to change to get this far. The final piece of the puzzle was the Klima relay. This relay controls the engagement of the compressor and had burned out when the clutch shorted. I ended up buying a rebuilt...
I have always admired the W116 model. However, since the introduction of the W126 in 1980 the W116 has lived in its shadow. My 450SLC has been my primary car for most of the time I have owned it, but with three children, this is no longer possible. As I needed something that could fit three child seats in a row, a W116 would...
My fight with the W126 Air Conditioning system is almost over. When I purchased the car, the A/C worked rather well. After the water pump gave out, it looks like it shorted out the compressor clutch. Changing out the clutch is not much different to changing out the whole compressor, so I sourced a new compressor and receiver/drier. This was rather irritating as working...
My story of fixing the W126 climate control can be summed up by: If everything points to a problem with an expensive part, don’t waste your time trying to replace the cheaper parts around it in a futile hope it will solve the problem! After trying a used Climate Control Unit, new fan resistor etc, I finally bit the bullet and bought a rebuilt...
I’ve been fighting with the W126 Climate Control system for the last few months – and it’s been winning. When I purchased the car in November last year, it was a very hot day and the A/C worked great. It had a new radiator, so I took the evidence of leaking coolant to be history rather than a current problem. Turned out the...
The 300SE has been suffering from poor hot starts. It required a lot of cranking before it fired. On a K-Jet car, this is normally caused by a faulty fuel accumulator. From what I understand it’s the job of the fuel accumulator to hold fuel pressure after the car is switched off. I also planned to change the fuel filter as I didn’t know...
The Sydney German Car Show 2017 was held today and as usual it did not disappoint. A great selection of Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, VW and Audi’s were on display. The only downside was that aside from the Micro cars, there was no representation from the niche German cars. There was also only one pre-war car. This event has really grown...
My Mercedes collection after giving them a quick wash. A representative from the 60s, 70s and 80s.
I had a couple of small jobs on the 250SE I had been meaning to do for months. Since the car is to be displayed at the German Car show, it seemed like a good time to do them. One of the hubcaps was in poor condition. I had another set of used hubcaps painted almost a year ago now. However, I...
This weekend I was down in Canberra. Since the 2017 ACT German Car Show was on, I stopped by. Unfortunately, I was only able to stay for 10 minutes as I had assumed it was held in the regular location near the national library. Turns out it had moved to Pialligo Estate, near the Airport. Perhaps not as picturesque a venue, but...
NSW has a great historic registration system. It allows for classics to be used for 60 days on a logbook for a drastically reduced fee. For unknown reasons the plates issued are tiny plates with purple numerals. The plates are so small they are not wide enough for the mounting holes on most cars. As these plates don’t end up...
Recently on the 300SE I had to make a decision if I would fix the head gasket or junk the car. To do the repair right was going to cost pretty much what I paid for the car. I had also spent pretty decent money doing the water pump only a few months before. To add to that I probably had...
The Mercedes-Benz museum is the best of the manufacturer museums I have been to. I was able to visit the new museum in 2008, which was a couple of years after it opened, replacing the old museum. I was already very impressed with the old museum and this new one was a big leap ahead. Of course the rich heritage Mercedes-Benz...
The current Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart opened in 2006, but it wasn’t new. There was a previous Museum that was replaced. The previous Museum was smaller, but it was still an excellent museum. It featured the most famous cars like the 30s F1 cars, the 500K, Gullwing etc. I was able to visit the old Mercedes-Benz Museum back in 2003 and recently...
Previously, I had identified that the cause of my A/C problems was the fuse blowing. I have been narrowing down the problem more and more to the compressor clutch. Therefore, I wanted to eliminate everything else as the compressor is every expensive and beyond my skillset. I had already unplugged two other components that are part of the fuse 5...
The 300SE had a severe stumble at idle. It only occurred when the engine was hot. It never stalled the engine, but felt like it was about to. There was also a miss at takeoff. My initial thought was to check the distributor cap and rotor. However, on further examination, you could see sparking around the #6 spark plug. It...
When new, a W126 Mercedes would have come with four keys: Two square headed master keys. One round headed valet keys. A flat ‘wallet’ key. The master keys were designed for everyday use and opened all locks on the car: doors, ignition, glove box and boot. The valet key is similar, but does not open the glove box or boot if manually looked....
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