The 280CE was making a knocking sound while steering and it had failed its rego due to a bad tie rod, necessitating a replacement. The job is not that difficult, especially if you have the right tools. There are a few good resources on the Internet, but a few things I found: I couldn’t remove the ball joints with a pickle fork,...
Not a perfect match, but a good repair for $300 cash.
The 280CE is finished. New muffler, passed blue slip and sold. My brother has purchased the car as he wrote off the BMW that we ‘dismantled’ earlier. That means that it will still be featured on this website from time to time even though I no longer own it. There are still a few things needed to do on the car,...
After replacing the water pump and test driving the 280CE, it was time to get it registered. Unfortunately it failed due to a small rust hole in the body work. This is not structural, but NSW is very strict in this regard. There was also a minor leak from the power steering and minor leak from the rear muffler. All...
The 280CE finally has a new water pump and no longer leaves an embarrassing puddle where it sleeps. After fighting with the bolts on the visco fan, it was finally able to be removed with a combination of drilling and vice grips. After that, the rest of the disassembly was not nearly as bad. In total, to get to the water pump on...
I had a problem with the 280CE sticking ignition key. This can turn into a real problem as the way to change the tumbler requires you to be able to move it, so if you cannot, then you end up having to take drastic measures to remove it. It is much better to replace it while it can still move. You have two...
In order to get to the water pump on the 280CE, the fan assembly had to be removed, which is held on by four rather inaccessible bolts. Two of he bolts came out ok, but two were stuck firmly and became even more rounded in trying to remove them. Mercedes must have used high quality bolts, as 20 hours and 5 drill bits...
The 280CE was leaking quite badly, and it looked like it was coming from the water pump. I ordered a pump and not have finally started on the replacement. First job was to drain the coolant – which wasn’t in bad condition, disconnect the radiator, and remove it. The radiator is easy to remove with four metal clips that can be prized...
The 450SLC’s gear stick had become more and more floppy, and given my experience with the 250SE, I thought it was better to take a look and potentially fix the issue than have it totally fail on me. The gear selector bushings are a common issue on these cars. Looking under the car, by 1977, Mercedes had gone to a better design. As...
There are plenty of interesting classic cars out there that I are fun to own, and drive on the weekend. My E-Type is one of those for example. Not so many can be realistically driven every day though. In my opinion, the Mercedes-Benz range from the 60s is one of those who can. I just saw an interesting story of a...
After using yet another bulldog clip to temporarily move the car, I went to look in my parts cupboard and found that I had two of the upper bushings from my old 250SE Coupe that came with some parts. They looked like the right part and had a 112 part number, so seemed correct. Like the lower one, it was quite an easy fitting....
Like most W111, my 250SE has a column shift. This means that there is a fairly complex set of linkages to connect the column shifter to the auto transmission. After I had used the 250SE as a wedding car, one of the bushings for the linkages broke, so today my job was to fit the new ones I had ordered. This isn’t...
by admin · Published February 5, 2014 · Last modified September 17, 2024
It is hard to find somebody who prefers four door cars on aesthetic grounds. Sure, four door cars may be more practical, often cheaper to insure and easier to live with, but when buying a classic car, those considerations are not nearly as important. Mercedes Benz have always provided a range of handsome coupes in their range, which are still even years...
I had wanted to buy this book for a while, as the author, Bernd S. Koehling had written some interesting blog articles on his website, so I figured I would try a couple of his books too (I also purchased Volume 2 which will be the subject of a later review). Added to that, he obviously has great taste in cars, and I would...
The 450SLC had been idling rather roughly and stumbling when taking off from stop. This got a bit better when I changed the coil, cap and rotor – and at that time I noticed that the leads were not in great shape, especially the one to the coil. There are a lot of leads for sale, many of them inferior quality. The Beru HT...
Lets face it, R134A is rubbish when it comes to cooling older cars. It is significantly less efficient than R12. Systems that are not designed for it struggle to keep the car tepid in the Australian summer. Added to that, the air conditioning on the 107 models from Mercedes was never their strong point either, so when you couple a marginal system, that...
This post is a flashback to 2009 when I upgraded the lights on my 1988 560SEC I owned while living in Michigan. When I moved to Michigan in 2007, I bought a 560SEC. The car was a bit rough, but Detroit is not a city you can really live in without a car, and it wasn’t expensive. Being a midwest car, it...
As outlined in a previous post, the 450SLC broke down a week and a half ago and the NRMA helped me diagnose it down to a bad coil. Yesterday, my new coil, cap and rotor arrived so I got down to getting fitting them t the car. A quick test of the new coil had the car roaring back to life, so I...
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