I created a list of items I wanted to address, with the first being the critical one.

• Occasional coolant leak after long drives
• Fix a transmission leak
• Windscreen washer not working
• Oil pressure gauge odd readings
• Slight noise from alternator
• Poor A/C performance
• Fit battery monitor

My 560SEL has 342,000km on the clock, but I use it quite a lot so it is in good mechanical shape.   Any older car can have an issue, but sorting that list out would give me confidence for the trip.  I also packed some spares with me, such as radiator hoses, fuses, the old alternator and the like.

Poor A/C Performance, Alternator & Transmission leak

I started with the A/C performance, largely because I hadn’t noticed the coolant leak at that time.   Late last year, the freon leaked out of the system, so it felt like a good opportunity to not only address that issue, but fit the same uprated condenser I have on my 560SEC.   I started this upgrade at roughly the same time as I upgraded the condenser on my 450SLC.

As with before, I got the kit from Klima Design works, and my mechanic fitted it for me.   There wasn’t any real issue fitting the kit, but the leak was found to me my compressor.   The compressor had been replaced by the previous owner about 10-12 years prior.   Based on the leaky compressor, we didn’t re-gas the system and I sourced a new compressor to be fitted on my next visit.

The transmission leak turned out to be the secondary transmission pump.   The seals were replaced, as well as the transmission cooler hoses.   At the time my mechanic noted it looked like the radiator had been leaking coolant.

I had heard some noise from the alternator, so had him replace it with a Bosch rebuilt unit.   After my experience last time, I figured the swap meant I would also have the old one as a spare before it failed.

A few months later I had the compressor changed and now had working A/C again.   It didn’t seem as cold as the 560SEC is, but it is a good improvement on what I had before.

Coolant Leak

I was only able to see the coolant leak after a long drive, and after that I would have a small puddle of coolant under the car.    The puddle was always under the middle of the car, but I could not see any evidence of leaks from the coolant hoses.

To try and narrow it down to see if it was the radiator or something else, I ran the car while up on the hoist.  I couldn’t get it to leak coolant and I checked carefully around the radiator and heater hoses.   I changed the oil pressure sender unit while the car was up in the air.

After leaving the car overnight, I had a small pool of coolant on the floor underneath where the starter was.  At least the oil pressure gauge was working correctly.

Since the leak was not conclusive, I took the car back to my mechanic so he could pressure test it.   Turns out the radiator would leak from the seams when under pressure.  I guess the coolant was running down the undershield, or being blown back onto the engine before leaking onto the ground.   A new Radiator fixed the problem.

Windscreen washer and battery monitor

Having a working windscreen washer is quite useful for country driving.  The first and most obvious test was that I had fluid in the tank, which I did.  I was also able to test the headlight washers, which did spray when the headlights were switched on.    The pumps from my parts car were really crusty.  I simply swapped the headlight and windcreen pumps over.  I now have a working windscreen washer at the expense of the headlight washer.   The headlight washer is really for snowy environments.

I also fitted a BM2 battery monitor, which I use for most of my cars.  Since Mercedes-Benz didn’t provide a voltage gauge, the battery monitor allows my phone to act as a voltage gauge.

The post Preparing my 560SEL for a 4,800km road trip appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

The first step is to remove the cluster and have a look.  You can’t order the gears until you check what you have, as the various combinations of instrument cluster use gears with different numbers of teeth.   The factory tool to remove the cluster is not necessary.   The easiest way to get the cluster out is to remove the speaker and push it out from behind.

Once removed, the instrument cluster can be unplugged (there are a lot of plugs) and brought to a workbench.  The first thing that must be removed is the exterior temperature display.   It is held onto the bottom of the instrument cluster with two screws and simply slides out.   These two screws also hold in the speedometer.

Next, there are four more screws to remove the speedometer housing.    They are the gold ones with the hexagonal heads on the edges.

Once those screws are removed, the entire assembly for the speedometer just lifts out, once the warning light that clips on is removed.    At the same time, the two smaller inner bulbs for the indicators, and larger outer bulbs for the illumination should be removed.

It is not possible to repair the odometer while the speedometer is still in its plastic housing.   The four inner screws must also be removed.   On my cluster they were the silver phillips head screws, but I’ve also seen gold flathead screws on other clusters.

The speedometer unit lifts out, and care should be taken to not lose the four rubber spacers that go on the plastic feet that stick through the circuit board.   There are also plastic baffles for the light bulbs that slide out.

With the cluster removed, you can see the original vivid orange the speedometer needle was, as well as the the max speed markings and 50/60 hatching.  These should all match, so I elected not to repaint my speedometer needles, as I do not have a steady enough hand to repaint the sections on the speedometer face.   They look terrible when they don’t match, as well as looking terrible when painted red, not the factory orange.

The odometer gears are accessed to the right of the speedo.   There is a cover held on by two tiny philips head screws.   In the picture above, the cover has already been removed (top right) and the tiny screws are on the table.  The cover is a bit of a pain to get off, due to the black box.

With the cover off, it is easy to see the three gears that wear.   The small one, from the drive motor on the right, the top one, and the next one.  There are also two more gears that don’t seem to wear and do not need to be replaced.

The main thing to do here is to remove the two larger gears and count the teeth on the inner gear for each.  The outer teeth seem to always be 48, but the inner teeth vary.   I guess I’m going to need reading glasses soon, as I couldn’t count the inner teeth without the magnifying glass app on my phone.   When I last did this a few years ago, I didn’t need any assistance!

The picture below shows one of my gears, including the missing teeth.

The smaller gear always seems to have 12 teeth, so does not need to be counted.   There also seems to always be a 12/48 gear.   However, for my 560SEL with a 260KM/h speedometer and a 2.47 rear end, I needed a 14/48 gear.   My old 300SE needed a 13/48 and my 560SEC with an MPH speedometer needed an 18/48.   I purchased my gears from Garagistic.

By the time the gears arrived, plus I had a bit of work travel, it had been a few months since I removed the cluster.   It is a pretty simple matter to remove the two larger gears, but the original small gear is on a brass bushing, which is no longer needed.  The easiest way to remove it is to break it with a set of cutting pliers.

Once that is off, the new small gear is just press fit on.  The two larger gears are much easier to put in.   At this point, I made a mistake.  I assumed that the white gear was the replacement for the light coloured gear, and the blue gear was a replacement for the black one.   I put everything together and tested in the car.   It didn’t work properly.   I then removed it all again, and looking at the photos of when I did my 300SE, I realized I had them backwards, and it was binding.   The blue one should have been the top one.

I also used a small amount of rubber grease, as I found I could hear the gears on my 300SE with no lubrication.   As can be seen from one of the pictures up above, the original gears were lightly lubricated.

At this point, I also thought I would try replacing my broken clock with a different one.  I have a few spare W126 instrument clusters, so I removed the clock/tacho from the one that was in the best visual condition and swapped it over.

This was a pretty simple thing to do, but proved futile, as the replacement clock didn’t work either.   I put my old one back, as it was in much better visual condition than the other two spares.   Removing and the bulbs for the illumination a couple of times caused them to fail, so I ended up replacing both of them.  I keep bulbs like this on hand so it was easy to do.

In doing this testing, I didn’t push the cluster back in properly which made it easy to take it in and out until I was happy with everything. Once I was, I pushed the cluster back in place and replaced the speaker.

The final test was to check the accuracy of the odometer with my GPS.  On a 2.8km course, the trip odometer recorded 2.8km, so I was happy with the result.    I’m glad my 560SEL odometer repair is finally done, as I don’t like to drive cars without a working odometer.

The post 560SEL Odometer repair appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

At that point I was preparing the 560SEC for the concours run and the 300TE for the Tasmania trip, so I parked the 560SEL to look at after those events.

I assumed that the problem was going to be a broken plastic slide in the window regulator.  This is a very common problem on the W126.   I was so sure this was the issue that I bought a couple of these slides online.

Earlier this year, I finally removed the door trim and the slide was in perfect condition.  Removal of the W126 door trim is wel documented, but there are a few gotchas.   The first is that the trim should never be pulled outward until it is pulled up and plastic hooks are clear of the door.   They will break otherwise.   Secondly, there is a tiny plastic circlip in the electric seat switch.  This is often missing, but was still present on my car.   All the other doors I’ve removed the trim that had power seats were missing that circlip.

I couldn’t see any obvious issue other than the window being stuck.    At this point I was preparing for a couple of work trips, so I took the car to a mechanic to take a look at it.   He removed the regulator and diagnosed a bad window motor.   He showed me how the plastic gear inside the motor was binding up preventing the motor from working.

Enter the 420SEL parts car.   I removed the motor from the front drivers side.   The other motors are different and have different part numbers.    The parts car motor looked a bit manky but it did work.   I cleaned it up as best I could and dropped it off.

The parts car motor did the trick and I got the car back with a working window.    My job was to put the trim back on.   The first part was replacing the moisture barrier.   The original one had a few rips in it, so my daughters and I made a new one from some plastic sheet, using the old one as a template.

As well as the moisture barrier, I also replaced the pot metal bracket that goes around the door pull, and exchanged the door pull with one with slightly less play in the mechanism.  The door pulls from the rear doors are the same and are generally less floppy.  The metal bracket was broken as can be seen.

The main trick with getting the door trim on is to remove the little trim strip that goes alongside the window aperture.  It is held in with a single screw and then it lifts upwards and away.   This allows the top of the door trim to better fit into the channel near the window.

The puddle light is also a bit of a pain as once its connected you need to keep the door trim near the door.     From there the job is fiddly but not all that hard.   The main thing is not breaking any of the clips when re-attaching the trim.

It’s been good to have the 560SEL back and operational.  I’ve been driving it pretty much daily for the last week.

The post W126 stuck power window appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

I had a look at the car, and saw that while it did have a Hirschmann branded antenna, it was the wrong one.   It was one of those generic antennas sold in the 90s.   Quite a lot of original Hirchmann antennas got replaced with these as they were not much more than the cost of a new mast.   I have one on my 450SLC, as when I got the car the original Hirchmann was long gone.  Sadly, it had been replaced by something cheap and nasty.

Since I planned to sell the 300SE, and I wanted to sell it with a working power antenna, I swapped out the 90s Hirschmann antenna with the proper 80s unit that no longer worked.   Since the 300SE was no longer sporting its original Becker, it seemed like a reasonable swap.    I also had one in the 420SEL parts car.    As the harness had been cut on the 560SEL, I was able to grab that piece of harness from the parts car.

That harness piece let me test both antennas.   The great news was that both of them moved a bit, they just had bent and stuck masts.    I had bought an aftermarket mast to try with these antennas, so I started with the antenna from the 300SE.   It was actually worse, even though the one that came out of the 420SEL was really dirty.    After a clean up they both looked pretty good.    I was pleasantly surprised, as I had low expectations of even having one working antenna from the two.

I set about opening up the Hirchmann antenna from the 300SE.   While you don’t strictly have to open up the case to change the mast, I wanted to inspect the inside and lubricate the gears.  Opening up the antenna case is very easy once you’ve done it once.  You have to release the plastic tabs.  I found the best way was to use a medium sized flat head screwdriver and lever each one carefully from the top.   I tried for a while to push them from the bottom but that never worked.

Overall, I was pretty impressed with the internal condition of the antenna.   It was a bit dirty, and there was a very small amount of moisture inside the case.   That was all cleaned up.    You need to be careful not to lose the little rubber rings that locate the motor.   There are three on the front and three on the back.

The actual process of removing the mast is well covered in various youtube videos.   I found once I had loosened the top of the mast and removed the mast carrier, I had to run the antenna to get the toothed belt out of the housing.   Its possible with one person but would have been easier with an assistant to hold it.   I also had to run the antenna to feed in the new mast.  I went with a cheap aftermarket mast, primarily because I had fairly low expectations that my antennas would work.

The mistake I made first time, was to feed in the new mast fully before re-assembling the housing.   The best way is to feed it in about 80% and then cut the power.   If you feed it in all the way, the motor runs to the end and pulls itself up too far and off its mounting points.   This means the belt doesn’t line up with the bulge in the case to accommodate it.     If you only feed it in 80%, you can then locate the motor properly in the case, check the rubber rings are all located properly, and then put the case back on.   Once the case is on, I then tightened up everything else, and ran the mast up and down a few times to test it.

From there it was a fairly simple matter of installing the antenna in the 560SEL.   I forgot to order a new rubber grommet to locate the antenna in the rear wing.  The one from the 300SE was a bit hard, but generally ok, so I re-used it.    I first spiced in the harness from the 420SEL into the 560SEL, and was a bit perplexed why it didn’t work.   After a few minutes of checking fuses, I remembered that the trigger wire to the old antenna was separate.  It wasn’t using the blue wire from the factory harness.

I suspect this is because the Becker 868 is a two piece unit, and the antenna trigger wire comes from the secondary box, which is located in the boot on my car.    I’ve left this wire with a quick disconnect. I often park the 560SEL under the hoist, so it can be useful to disable the power antenna.

I’m going to purchase a new grommet and new genuine mast to have on hand.   The old grommet was quite hard, and I’m not sure how long this aftermarket mast will last.   Now i’ve done it before, it will be a simple job to replace them if I have to.   The car is all ready for a club run tomorrow.

The post W126 Hirschmann Antenna appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

I knew the hoses were only a year old on the 560SEL, so the issue was likely to be with the caliper.   The hoses were probably due for a change on the 250SE, so could have been either issue there.   Based on this, I checked the caliper types and ordered the appropriate rebuild kits.   I also ordered a set of hoses for the 250SE.   I had to double check the electronic parts catalogue, as the rear hoses are not the same for each side on my car.

The 250SE went first, and while the hoses were due for replacement, all four calipers were pretty bad.   The difference in feel in the brakes is immense.  The first few times I drove the car, the pedal was so easy to push it was almost like there was something wrong.   In addition, I had some more work done on the ongoing stuttering issues I am having with the car.   My mechanic was able to tune it up as best he could but he thinks I’m close to needing a rebuild for the mechanical fuel injection pump.   Not only is it causing these odd fuel delivery issues, but it has an oil leak out of the back.     He also suggests I keep my eye out for a good used thermal time switch (part 001 545 92 24).  Cold starts are very slow.

Next was the 560SEL.   In this case, the fronts were fine, but the rears were pretty locked up.   While he was there, I also had the front shocks replaced.   Fixing both has made a big impact to how the car drives.   Again, the pedal feel is much better even with just the rears done.   And the ride over bad surfaces is significantly improved from the shocks.   Those Pedders shocks were really low quality and were already knocking despite not being that old.   They really ripped off the previous owner of the car.

I figured after having three pairs of brake calipers rebuilt, I was done for a while.   Turns out, I wasn’t.   Around the same time, the brake pad wear indicator lit up on my 560SEC.   Assuming this was a routine brake pad change, I got to work.   I don’t normally detail routine maintenance on this site, so wasn’t planning to feature anything about this.   However, when I had the first pad out, and it had most of the wear materials left, I started looking more closely.   Turns out only one piston has been working and that side is mostly down to the backing.

While I was there, I also measured the thickness of the rotors to see if they need replacement.   They look pretty old and crusty, so its quite possible they do.   Instead of swapping the pads, I put the old one back in.  I will book in this car to have the calipers checked.   I’m pretty confident I’m going to need another set of rebuilt Mercedes brake calipers on this car.    Luckily, I have a set of Bendix rebuild kits of hand that I purchased but didn’t need for the 560SEL.

Based on this experience, I expect that a vast majority of classic cars are driving around with brake calipers that are not functioning as they should.   They still stop the car, but performance is not as good as it should be.   This is going to be particularly prevalent in cars that are not driven regularly.   As much as having the calipers rebuilt is not a cheap exercise, good performing brakes are not something I am willing to compromise on.

Finally, while I was under the 560SEC, I swapped and adjusted the SLS control rod.   The rear ride height was too low, so I used the same technique as I did previously with the 300SE.    The height is better, but I think I need another couple of cm of height to have it back to factory.   The old control rod was starting to fail, so I used the one I had on hand for the 280SE and will order another one for that car.

In all this, I’ve found that when having a bunch of cars, I have the same issues on multiple cars at roughly the same time.   Part of it might be that having an issue on a car makes you more aware of it on others, but in the case of needing the rebuilt Mercedes brake calipers, I’m not so sure.

The post Rebuilt Mercedes brake calipers appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

There are a few parts on Mercedes of this era where multiple suppliers were used for the same part.   W126 Brake calipers are one of them.   Another example is window regulators and motors.   In the case of brake calipers, the different suppliers are interchangeable, but the rebuild kits are different.   Calipers are supposed to be the same brand on each axle, but front and rear can be different.    The window regulators are a similar story.  You can replace the whole regulator and motor combination, but if you’re only changing one, it has to be in the same brand.

The two suppliers of W126 brake calipers were ATE and Bendix.   Other than the series 1 SEC, you could get either ATE or Bendix calipers on your front or rear axle.   To order the rebuild kits, I needed to know the brand.

The easiest way is to remove the wheels and check.   The ATE and Bendix calipers have a different arrangement for securing the brake pads.     In my case, this was a bit harder.   I had just had an operation where I wasn’t supposed to lift more than 5kg for the next two weeks.   Luckily, my little boroscope was good enough to get in and look at the caliper.   It wasn’t possible to see the pads, but I could see the brand stamped on the outside.

Looking at the caliper alone is not immediately apparent, but if you check the company logos, its obvious what you’re looking for.    In this case, I had Bendix calipers on the front axle of my W126.    The fronts are harder to examine than the rears, as the calipers are much larger.   Getting the boroscope down to see the rear caliper logos was much simpler.

In my case, ATE calipers on the rear.    I’m not sure if I will need to have the front calipers rebuilt, but I want to have the rebuild kits available just in case.   Kits are available for both types, bu the ATE kits are much more accessible, and available from different brands.   The Bendix kits were much harder to to find, and 4x more expensive.

Next time I have the wheels off the other cars, I am going to note down the caliper brands.   Even if you don’t source your own parts, it’s worth telling your mechanic what you have, so they order in the right rebuild kits before you arrive.

The post Identifying W126 Brake calipers appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

The reason why I had the Gullideckel wheels on my 450SLC goes back to late 2018 when I purchased my 560SEC.   At the time, it came with a set of Simmons wheels.   They are a high quality Australian made wheel that are very popular on Fords.   I didn’t think they looked right on the SEC.    At the time, I was able to buy a lovely set of refurbished Gullideckel wheels from MB Spares and Service.   I originally planned to put them on the SEC, but in the end I decided to put the 8 hole replica wheels on the SEC and put the Gullideckel on the SLC.   The 8 holes rubbed slighly on the SLC and didn’t look quite right.

Based on all this, I purchased the Penta wheels for the 450SLC which I am very happy with.   I originally planned to wait a year or so to put the refurbished Gullideckel wheels on the 560SEL.  That was because the ratty wheels had good Michelin tyres from 2016 and the refurbished wheels had cheap tyres I didn’t like the feel of.   Two things changed that.   Firstly, a Black Friday sale for 50% off Pirelli tyres.   Secondly, I noticed that one of the Michelins had worn down on one of the edges from the alignment being slightly out.

I had recently had the front suspension rebuilt on my 560SEL.   My mechanic took it to be aligned, but I don’t think the alignment shop used the right specs as the handling was downright scary after the change.  I really noticed that driving in the wet for the Youngtimer Sacco Day.    I took the car back, and it took my Mechanic a few goes back to the alignment shop for them to get it right.   At the same time they wanted the castor bushings changed, which were slightly worn, but not that bad.    At least now I had a good alignment to start with for my fresh tyres.

The Black Friday sale meant that the tyres were only $270 fitted.   A great deal that also included some fuel discount cards.   I also kept the Goodride tyres, as they have tread left and I should be able to get $100-$200 for those.  They are currently for sale!

To take advantage of the deal, I fitted the nice wheels to the car a couple of days before.   While I was at it, I cleaned the wheel wells like I have for the SEC and SLC.    They were just as dirty and grimy as those cars.   I had the new tyres fitted the other day and the look of the car is transformed.   Its also much nicer to drive as well.

A nice set of wheels really make the car.   The Gullideckel were always an attractive style of wheel.   In my opinion, much more so than the previous set of available alloys.    The change also allows me to use the old wheels as spares in the various cars.   Three of the four Michelins are in good shape and from 2016.   This gives me a spare in the SEL, SEC and SLC.   The spares in all of those cars were well over 10 years old and not something to be relied on for long trips.   This was especially important for the 450SLC, as I plan to drive it to Adelaide in 2022 for the Mercedes Benz Clubs national rally.   I may even take a second spare in the boot.

The post 560SEL refurbished Gullideckel wheels appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

There are countless threads on the various Mercedes forums like BenzWorld and PeachParts about this resistor and various attempts at changing it.   Most of these attempts are for the W124 and nearly all of them concern the USA version.   This made me think about what this might mean for the Australian version.   The Australian version has slightly more power than the USA version.   However, it has no EGR, no smog pump, and a far less restrictive exhaust system.    The other difference is that the USA version is set up for 95 Octane petrol and the Australian version for 91.  For more details on all these differences, please see this article.

Its not possible to use 91 Octane petrol in a W126 in Australia anymore because it has been contaminated with Ethanol.   Real petrol is only available in 95 and 98 Octane.   That made me think it would probably make sense to optimise the 560SEL for 95 petrol since that is what I use.   Based on that, I started my research.   Most of this data comes from the 1987 technical data book.  The values here are focused on the V8s, but the M103 is very similar.  This was a project I did during the COVID19 lockdowns earlier this year.

The first thing was to map the values of the switch provided in most cars to the fixed resistance values found in Australian, USA and Japanese cars.   In these tables, the S position corresponds to premium petrol and N regular petrol.

As these versions are all catalyst cars, we can see that the USA and Japanese versions correspond to the premium (95) position, and the Australian version to the regular (91) version.    The ECE version is set up for 98 if on premium, which is what I use on my car.

From there, we can then look at what these settings actually do to ignition timing.

In the table above, we can see that the main difference is that the timing without vacuum is lower.   I’m not really sure what impact this has in the real world.     The other thing we see is that the same switch position can lead to different timing maps depending on the version of the car.   To see what this meant, I cross referenced the EZL part numbers for these versions.   These are the numbers for the M117.968.

The main outcome of this was that the USA and Australian versions seemed to use the same EZL.   This meant that in theory, I should be able to replace my 220 Ohm R16 resistor for the 750 Ohm R16 resistor.    I tried to buy one new, but like a lot of W126 parts, they are now NLA.    In the end I found one on USA eBay to try.

I drove the car around after the swap and I really couldn’t tell any difference.   A better test would be to do a back to back run up a long freeway onramp to see if I felt any difference at higher rev ranges.   By modern standards, a 560SEL is not a particularly powerful car.  It is powerful enough that it is hard to use the higher rev ranges safely on most roads.

I’m not sure of the end outcome of this.   Best case, I have optimized the car for 95 octane petrol.   Worst case, I’ve not really made any difference.

The post The R16 resistor on the Australian W126 appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

This era of Becker do not have an aux input like the 60s models do.   Therefore, the only solution is to have the unit modified with the line in, or use an FM transmitter.   Becker cassette owners can also use one of those cassette adapters if their cassette player is still working.  At some point, I will have my Becker modified for a line in.    In the meantime, I am using an FM transmitter for my W126 handsfree solution.

My needs are pretty simple.   I want to play music off a USB drive, and I want to be able to make hands free phone calls from my phone via bluetooth.   Music streaming from the phone is only nice to have.

My first solution used a Kogan FM transmitter.   I was unimpressed with this unit.    I will write a separate review some other time, as it left a lot to be desired.   Not specific to the Kogan unit was the requirement that I keep the ashtray open at all times.    The W126 interior is really nice, but let down if the ashtray is always open.

As I needed to replace the Kogan FM transmitter, I started looking for one I could modify so it fit inside the ashtray.    I found the best selection on AliExpress.   In the end I chose a model where the main housing was a small rectangular unit.    It was easily small enough to fit into a W126 ashtray insert.    I bought two of them.    One to modify for the ashtray and the other as a backup, If I found my modifications were fatal to the unit.   I have been using the backup plugged into the ashtray and I have been happy with its functionality.    It also has a USB charging port for my phone, an added bonus.

I didn’t want to modify my original ashtray insert, so had planned on buying one from eBay.   None for a reasonable price had come up, but then I purchased my 420SEL parts car.   The ashtray was in good condition.

The first step was to see if my AliExpress FM transmitter could work without its appendage that goes into the cigarette lighter.   I carefully removed it.   Inside the appendage was a small transformer that took 12V and ground from the car and supplied 12V, 5V and ground to the FM transmitter.   The main FM transmitter ran on 5V, but it also had a battery monitor function that needed 12v.  I was able to ascertain all this by applying 12v and ground to the old cigarette lighter connections and using a multimeter to verify the voltages coming out the back.   Red was 5V and Yellow was 12V.

Instead of trying to build my own housing for the existing transformer, I purchased a separate one online that came in its own housing and would fit in the back of the cigarette lighter insert.   I wasn’t sure of the amperage requiremnets, so I built in some fat and got one that could do 5A.    Since it has to power the phone charger as well, I wanted some head room.

Next step was to modify the 420SEL ashtray insert.   It had two features to aid smokers.   Around the rim, there was a cigarette holder that would have prevented the FM transmitter from being fully visible.    There was also a bump on the bottom, presumably to stop a cigarette falling in if it is resting there.   That made the button on my FM transmitter too high.    I used a dremel tool to cut off the cigarette lighter holder and a hammer to bash out the bump.

From there, I did a quick test fit to see if the modified insert still went into the ashtray housing.   It did.   I also did a test fit of my transformer and FM transmitter.   They worked too.    My W126 handsfree solution was taking shape.   It was a pretty simple task to wire it all up.   I planned to use the cigarette ligher feed, as I would no longer need it and did not want to modify the car.    I would need two 12v wires. One for the transformer and one for the 12v of the FM transmitter, plus a ground.   Confusingly, the output of the transformer was a 5V yellow wire which then connected to the 5V red wire of the transmitter.   Similarly, the red 12V wire from the car connected to yellow on the transmitter.

I had originally planned to send the wires out via a hole in the clear plastic insert on the right hand side which allows light to get in.   I soon abandoned this approach as I could not re-fit the ashtray insert to the housing with the wires sticking out this way.   In the end,  I drilled a hole in the back which worked.   It probably would have been better to drill it about 2cm to the left as there is a gap in a plastic molding that would have made the exit easier.   To stop my components rattling around I used some velcro.   As a future improvement, I should put a rubber grommet around the hole for the wires so they do not chafe.   The two 12v then connected to a single spade connector, as did ground.

Next step was to remove the ashtray housing from the 560SEL.   This was only necessary to unplug the cigarette lighter.   Its a two minute job, with two screws visible once the insert is removed and the ashtray is fully extended.    The factory plug worked fine with my spade connectors, so my W126 handsfree solution can be removed at any time.

Important to the design was to leave enough slack in the wires so the insert could be removed while installing the ashtray housing.   This is essential as the housing cannot be screwed in with the insert installed.

Obviously, before I screwed it all together, I tested the solution.   Success!  Everything seemed to work fine.   I then properly installed the ashtray housing and the insert.     At some point, if I am still happy with this solution I will create a cover for the wires on the right, and provide an on/off switch.    I’ll also look at a retractable charging cable for the left side, so its not hanging around when not in use.

The ashtray only needs to be open if I am speaking on the phone, or if I want to change track on my music.    I had hoped the remote control that came with the FM transmitter would even allow me to go to the next track without opening the ashtray, but unfortunately that was not to be.    It works quite well though.  When driving home I got a call, and all I had to do was open the ashtray and press the round button.   For most of the time, the ashtray remains shut.   The final photo shows the normal look. Unless you open the ashtray you would never known there is a separate transmitter in there.

This particular unit also has a line out.  I will be able to use its USB and telephone features even after I have a aux line-in installed on the Becker.   This will improve sound quality as the FM transmitter is ok, but not perfect.   And while the remote control does not work with the ashtray closed, the bluetooth does.   So far, I am pretty happy with my W126 handsfree solution.   With a few modifications, it can be even better.

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The front suspension rebuild included new upper control arms and associated bushings, lower control arm bushings and sway bar bushings.    I went with genuine for the upper control arms and Lemforder for the lower control arm bushings.   The genuine parts are expensive, but they are inexpensive compared to the labour required and I am confident they will last the distance.

As well as the sway bar bushings at the front suspension there are also a set on the firewall.   Replacing these was a big job.   One of them is under the battery tray which is quite easy to get at.   The other required the removal of the brake booster and fuse box.    Having removed and replaced the brake booster on my old W111 250SE, I’m glad I didn’t have to do it on the w126.

While I was having this work done, I also had the brake hoses replaced.   I had experienced brake fade on a long downhill stretch, and I wasn’t sure how old they were.   I am glad I had them replaced as they were swollen inside. The picture below shows some of the old parts.

At the same time, I also had a couple of o-rings replaced in the transmission.   This was the cause of a transmission leak.    After all this work you can tell the front suspension is far more supple.   Since I re-installed the rear self-leveling suspension, and not fixed the front suspension this car rides really well.

Prior to this work being carried out, I also had the flex discs replaced.   I had noticed some minor cracking in the discs when inspecting the underside of the car.   I probably could have left them for a while longer, but it is better to be safe that sorry with parts like this.   There are plenty of stories of major damage and accidents from failed flex discs.

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