Editors Note: This is part three in a series by Nick Gruzevskis about owning a 1978 Mercedes 450SE W116. The first part covered the purchase and cosmetic restoration and the second covered some further maintenance. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to write, as after work hours my focus had been on organising the MBCV 2025 Mercedes-Benz Concours d’Elegance. As the event...
When I purchased my 450SLC, it had tinted windows. The tint wasn’t new, as there were already a couple of minor areas where it was lifting. In the 20+ years since, it had slowly become worse. Removing it had been on my list for the last 5-10 years, and I finally got around to it recently. The worst of it was on the rear...
Recently one of the halogen headlight bulbs in my 450SLC went out. While the light is pretty good, I thought it was an opportunity to see if I could get some kind of improvement. I use the 450SLC quite a lot for night drives, so a bit more light would be welcome. To achieve this, I really had three options: Replace the reflectors Upgrade...
Last year, I replaced the speakers in my 450SLC. As part of this process I was quite keen to go back to the original rear speaker trims. A friend of mine helped me get a set of the original speaker trims for the car. However, even though I used 5″ speakers at the rear, they didn’t fit under the original speaker trims. As a...
Today I attended the monthly Machines & Macchiatos event in Terrey Hills. This is one of the regular cars and coffee events in Sydney. While it is in a similar area to the St Ives event, it attracts a fairly different crowd so there is not too much overlap. While both events are open to anybody, Machines & Macchiatos seems to attract more of...
Today I went to the Auto Brunch Event in St Ives. It is still by far Sydney’s premier cars and coffee event. There isn’t anywhere else where you can see WO Bentleys lined up next to old Mitsubishi Sigmas. The Variety is immense and there is always something really interesting on display. I last went in December in my Citroen DS. Today I took...
Yesterday was the MBCNSW February 2025 Night Drive. For this drive, I brought back an old favorite route – which we last used April 2023. Our route started in Turramurra. We had a pretty good group of cars show up to the meeting point. I went in my 1981 240D, and on the drive we also had a W108 280SE 3.5, my old W116...
The prominent grille is one of the most obvious design features of the W123. A scruffy grille can really let down the car. On my 240D, the grille was in pretty good shape, but the plastic insert was starting to go chalky. In addition, one of the clips that holds on the metal strips had broken and a previous owner had used hot glue...
I recently noticed that the A/C on my 1981 240D wasn’t cooling so well in heavy traffic. On closer inspection, the W123 auxiliary fan was not kicking in at all. This is supposed to kick in when refrigerant temperatures are high to blow air over the condenser. I had a quick look at the wiring diagram to start troubleshooting. On the W123 diesel is...
Today the Mercedes-Benz, Rolls Royce and Maserati clubs had a joint cars and coffee event. It was held in the parking lot of St George Sailing club which turned out to be a good venue. There was enough room for all three clubs to park their cars together. I think these events are a good idea, as it brings a combination of cars together...
I’m currently in Europe for work. This weekend I found myself in Belgium, in a two about 35km from Brussels. it was a cold and wet weekend, which seemed perfect to go and see a car museum. Last time I was here, back in September 2013, I visited Autoworld Brussels. At the time I had enjoyed the museum. Since car museum collections turn over,...
W123 instrument clusters are notorious for jumpy temperature and fuel gauges and mine was no different. This problem seems to impact other Benzes of the era, but is particularly pronounced in the W123. I don’t really like not being able to trust my gauges to be generally correct, so I wanted to see what I could do about this. The issue seems to be...
I’ve had the 420SEL parts car for a few years now, and I have been rather slow and stripping it and getting rid of the carcass. I had done a deal to sell it about two years ago, but the buyer messed me around for about a year before he finally decided he didn’t want it after all. Based on that, I decided to...
Thursday was the first MBCNSW night drive for 2025. For scheduling reasons, we held it a week earlier than normal. Our meeting place was Heathcote McDonalds. McDonalds is always a good meeting place, as it is well lit, easy to find and has clean toilets. It had been very rainy earlier in the week, so I wasn’t sure what attendance would be like. January...
This weekend I took a road trip to Brisbane in my 240D. It was my first ever road trip in the car and I wasn’t sure what to expect. While I think the 240D is at its best in the city, it did very well on the road trip and I really enjoyed the experience. The trip to Brisbane was fairly last minute. There...
The Brisbane Car Museum is quite a new Museum, only opening last year. I’m currently in Brisbane for the weekend, so went to check it out with some friends from the Mercedes Club. It is located on the north side of Brisbane, not far from the airport, and is quite a good setup. There is plenty of under cover parking on the site, plus...
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