Around the same time, my brother was in need of a car and wasn’t looking to spend a whole lot of money.   As a previous 280CE owner, he was keen on the car so I agreed to sell it to him for a sharp price.   We did the last few things needed to get it on the road and registered.   This can all be found on this website.  At the time I sold it in mid 2014, it had just over 310,000km.   It now has almost 340,000 and has been used daily during that time.  He also put in a rebuilt steering box about a year ago.  This made a big difference to how it drives.

He’s now bought a late model BMW, so the 280CE is surplus to requirements.   It also needs some brake work for its next registration, so makes sense to sell it.    Its up on carsales.com.au and the asking price is $2,500 which I feel is reasonable for the condition.   It is a Mercedes-Benz pillarless coupe after all!

Ideally somebody will buy this and spend a little money tidying up the car.   It’s a little tatty in places but nothing that can’t be addressed. The W123 is a great first classic car as its quite simple and can be used regularly.    My first Mercedes was a W123.

The post My old W123 280CE is for sale appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

I trailered it back to my warehouse and straight away I noticed that while it looked a bit dilapidated, it seemed like a car that had been well looked after until only a few years go.    Also, there was nothing wrong with the radiator at all, the water leak was coming from the water pump.    This was actually good news as while the labour is much higher on the water pump, the parts are much cheaper!

In the end I replaced the water pump, new ignition tumbler, had a small rust hole cut out and generally got the car working again.   I then sold to my brother who is a fan of the model and had recently written off his 5-Series.  In the almost 3 years since he has put almost 20,000km on he car.   Not bad for a car that was practically dragged out of a ditch.

Today, I had to go and collect the car as the garage it was stored in needs to be painted and my brother is at sea.    On the drive home, I was reminded what a great car the W123 is, particularly the coupe.   Its comfortable, nimble and stylish.   Despite the ruined looking exterior, the drive train of this car is very strong and the 328,000km engine is smooth and powerful, even detuned via ADR27A.   This car does need a few things to make it more pleasant to drive though:

• The steering wheel is coming apart and needs replacement
• The handbrake handle has broken in two
• the passengers window switch is broken
• The throttle linkage needs checking and lubricating
• Due for a service

W123’s are still relatively inexpensive in Australia and represent a good entry level classic Mercedes.   I should know, my first Mercedes was a W123 230E and I had that car from 1997-2002.

The post Back behind the wheel of a W123 appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

The lost threads meant that it was also impossible to remove the nut to replace the bolt.   Luckily the power steering pump is fairly accessible from below (especially with a hoist), so the nut could be cut off with very careful use of an angle grinder.

the picture above shows the situation rather well.   As can be seen the pump can move to tension the belt but the bolt was not tightening properly allowing it to work loose.   The bolt has a little cog at the end so only one side of the bolt needs to be tightening to tension the belt.   We didn’t have one of these so a conventional bolt was used for now and a new bolt will be ordered.

After a test drive full operation of the steering has been restored.

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This car still had the factory fader switch installed.   That means that there is only a front and rear channel for the radio.  All the speaker wires go through the fader switch that controls the front/rear fade.    After a while these switches stop working well, and can be bypassed when using a modern radio – if you’re happy to cut the factory wiring.

While it looks complicated, to remove the fader switch, what is needed is to cut the wires that come out from near the fader switch itself – near the switch the smaller set of wires are for the rear speakers, and the larger set go back into the dash for the front speakers and radio connection.    Therefore, so long as the speaker wires are cut before they hit that section of wiring that joins them up, they can simply be wired into the new radio.   A 9v battery is a good way of verifying which speaker is which to ensure the radio is correctly installed.

If the wires are carefully cut, there is enough slack to re-install the radio without having to re-wire the speakers.

The post W123 Radio Upgrade – bypassing the factory fader appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

The 280CE was not aligned properly, and replacing the idler arm bushings was important before an alignment was done.   There are many resources on the Internet that explain how to change the W123 idler arm bushing, but most of them do it in conjunction with the track rods.   This is not essential, and if the track rods are still in good condition, the idler arm bushings can be replaced without removing the track rods.   I found this writeup the most useful.

Even after this repair and an alignment the CE still pulls to one side.  The alignment place suspects one of the front tyres which need replacement anyway.

I didn’t get a chance to take any photos of this job.   The W123 idler arm bushing is similar to other Mercedes-Benz models of the era.   It is not an expensive part.    Often this older Mercedes-Benz’s have really bad steering.   This is normally a combination of worn out idler arm bushings, steering coupling and play in the box itself.   Of all these things, the idler arm bushings are the easiest to replace.   Once these jobs are done, the cars are transformed.

The post W123 Idler arm bushing replacement appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

• New Spark plugs
• Transmission fluid and filter
• Rear end fluid change
• Brake fluid flush

We used NGK spark plugs as they offer non-resistor plugs that are easy to find.   The original spec for these cars called for non-resistor spark plugs, which are much harder to find now.   The plugs that were already in there were Beru and in reasonably good condition.

For the transmission, we changed the fluid, filter and pan gasket, but didn’t drain the torque converter.   When doing this it is important to not over tighten the pan and warp it and ensure that no debris is allowed to get inside the transmission.

The brake fluid was was much easier using a vacuum pump to make sure that all the old fluid was removed from the lines.

The post 280CE major service continued appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

The M110 thermostat is quite easy to remove – three 10mm bolts hold the housing – one is harder to get to and easier with a 1/4″ ratchet and extension.    Care should then be taken to align the new thermostat correctly – i.e the little valve at the highest point.

The thermostat change did the trick – the car is now running around 80c instead of around 60-65c and after a flush has fresh coolant.   We did an oil change too.  The M110 thermostat is much more accessible than some of the other cars, making it an easy change.

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1. I couldn’t remove the ball joints with a pickle fork, but it was straightforward with the specialty tool.
2. Raising the car off its wheels put more stress on the joints making the job harder, ramps were easier
3. The joints will break free suddenly, so be careful

Ideally you would have the car aligned after the tie rod is replaced.  The 280CE already required an alignment, so no big deal.   We replaced the entire tie rod rather than just the end.

Web resources:

• Diesel Giant
• Peach Parts

The post 280CE Tie rod replacement appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

Not a perfect match, but a good repair for $300 cash.

The post 280CE no longer a colander appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

There are still a few things needed to do on the car, but otherwise it is good to see it on the road again.  Those with eagle eyes will notice that the muffler has one pipe, rather than two as is correct for the 280CE.   Even an aftermarket muffler for the 280CE was $500-$600, so in the end we purchased a standard muffler of a wider pipe diameter and had the pipes joined together.

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