Turns out the new battery I bought along the way was slightly too big.   It was fouling on the bonnet and putting pressure on the hinge.   Since there was nothing wrong with the old battery, I decided to just put that one back in.    In the photo, the one on the right is the new one.    It’s a shame, because the new battery is brand new and a better spec.

The other thing I wanted to fix was the battery tray had some surface rust, and the battery hold downs were missing.   The battery hold downs may seem unimportant, but they prevent the battery shorting out on the bonnet or moving around over bumps or heavy cornering.   They were also missing on my 560SEL.

I’ve previously repaired the battery trays on both my 450SLC and 560SEL.   In both cases I used a rattle can primer and then top coat.    I wasn’t especially happy with the result on either car.   On the 450SLC, the top coat was too thick and ended up being soft.    On the 560SEL I did two thin coats, and it was better, but the trays are not uniform and it was hard to get even coverage.   I thought I would try something different this time.

As before, I started with a wire wheel attachment for my drill to remove surface rust.  I also used some brake clean to get some grease and residue off the tray.    Surprisingly, the tray in the 560SEC was better than the one in the 560SEL.    After a go with the wire brush, it actually came up reasonably well.

The bottom was even better, the only real rust around where the ‘tongue’ attaches to the main body of the tray.   I still thought there was value in doing this side regardless.

Instead of the rattle can, I decided this time to apply specific rust epoxy paint with a brush.   This would result in a worse finish, but a much better application of the paint.    Since the battery tray is really not visible with the battery installed, I thought this was a decent trade off.

I did two coats on the top and one on the bottom.   My nine year old daughter enjoyed painting the 560SEC battery tray.

I probably could have even used a product like miracle paint and had a better finish, but I didn’t have any, nor the time to drive to the supplier and get some.   After two coats, the 560SEC battery tray looked quite a lot better, but it was of course obvious the paint had been applied with a brush.

I’ll see how it looks when I remove the battery next time.    There is certainly a lot better all around coverage of the paint.

While the battery tray was out, I vacuumed all the leaves out from underneath it.   It is worth removing the battery tray every few years to remove any dirt and leaves from this part of the car.    Getting the 560SEC battery tray back in the car was a bit fiddly, it was hard to get all three holes to line up.

In the end I had the tray in and it was a huge improvement to before.  It’s still obvious it was painted with a brush, but there is no longer any rust or detritus.

Final step was to re-install the battery.   While I was there, I installed a battery hold down.   I had a couple on hand, a very rusty one from the 420SEL parts car, and a reasonable one that I found in the boot of the 560SEL after I ordered new ones.

I’m not sure what I am going to do with that big Delkor battery. Off the top of my head, I don’t think it fits any car I have. I may try and sell it. It wasn’t cheap, but it did get me home.

The post 560SEC battery tray appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

I’m taking my 1990 Mercedes 300TE on this drive.  Now I could have taken my wife’s modern car – a Mercedes E350 Wagon.    However, I far prefer driving the 300TE.   The E350 is not as irritating as most modern cars, but I would still rather drive the 124.   I also think any issues are more likely to be dealt with easily.   An ECU or Airmatic problem is going to end the trip.

In order to reduce the odds of any issues, I had a few jobs to do to the car.    None of them were mandatory, but I think good preventative maintenance.   I have previously covered some other work I did on the car such as refurbishing the instrument cluster, attempting to change the centre vent and changing the speakers.

This trip should take me past 380,000km for the car.

Starter motor replacement

A few months ago, I noticed that when I started the 300TE, the starter motor did not seem to full disengage, and I could hear a bad noise like it was still just touching the ring gear.  It only did this a few times, but I really didn’t want to be stuck with a bad starter by the side of the road.   A Bosch remanufactured starter wasn’t all that expensive and seemed like good insurance.    I had this done at a workshop.

Tailgate soft close mechanism

The S124 has a soft close mechanism for the tailgate.   All you need to do is gently close it, and the motor will latch the tailgate.   Recently, mine has started play up.   The motor does not engage when it should, but there is a sound coming from the back like the motor is trying to work at other times.   This was mostly when I closed it firmly to bypass the soft close, or when I turned off the ignition.

I bought a second hand soft close mechanism, and gave it to the same workshop who did the starter.   They swapped the two mechanisms over, but it was still playing up.   They also did some troubleshooting.   Using a multi-meter the microswitches seemed to register when the mechanism was in a position, but they did not trigger the motor.   When the motor was triggered, it was at extremely low voltage, and the noise was coming from something else in the mechanism.

After troubleshooting for a bit, and getting nowhere, we agreed to simply disable the mechanism for now, so it doesn’t flatten my battery while I am away.   The car still works, without the soft close feature.

Oil and Filter change

As part of my trip preparation, I did a routine oil and filter change.  My hoist is currently broken, so I pumped the oil out manually.  I used Penrite HPR15 – 15W/60 Full Synthetic.

When I do an oil change, I like to remove the fuel pump relay and use the starter until oil pressure registers on the gauge.  I don’t think its strictly necessary, but its something I like to do.

Bluetooth Module wiring

When installed the correct Becker 1402 in the car, I wired in a hidden Bluetooth FM injector.   This had mostly stopped working.  Occasionally it did work, which made me think the unit was bad.

The Bluetooth unit is under the dash wood in front of the shifter.  I removed the dash wood to get to it, assuming it would need replacement.  When I removed the radio, I immediately saw the problem.    In my install, I used a relay to trigger the blue tooth unit to turn on from the antenna trigger wire.  One of my crimp connections was loose.  When I moved the radio, it came out.  To fix the issue, all I had to do was put on a new connector.

New Battery

When I first purchased the car, my battery tester noted that the battery was a bit marginal.   From the service history, it had been installed in 2017.   It probably had another year or so in it, but in November, Supercheap had a big sale.   I got a new battery for 30% off and installed it for the trip.

Auxiliary fan cut in

I’ve never been happy with the temperature of the car in stop/go traffic with the A/C on.   It sits just above 100C.   Since I owned the car, I put in an 80C thermostat and replaced the viscous fan coupling.  Those made improvements, but I it was still hot in traffic.   Given the properties of R134A, I find that it works better if the radiator is not that hot.   I’ve planned to make a fan controller box with a variable resistor like I did for the 560SEC.   However, I’m terrible at soldering, so I have not had time.

For this trip, I just wrapped the resistor around the pins for the fan sensor, and put a new plastic housing around the pins for the wiring.   This is not perfect, but should bring the fan engagement point down to the mid 90s.

Key spare parts

One advantage of driving a very common car, like a Toyota Camry, is that there are parts available wherever you go.   This is not the case in a 30 year old Mercedes.   I packed a few parts that are probably not necessary, but may be helpful on the road.     The first is a new serpentine belt and tensioner.   As a rule, I don’t like serpentine belts.  If you lose an accessory, you can’t just remove that belt and continue.    However, that is what the M103 is equipped with.   This is not something I can do by the side of the road, but having the right belt and tensioner means I can be towed to any garage for a belt change.

I also brought a voltage regulator, and a distributor rotor and cap.   Plus a few standard Mercedes relays, fuses, some wiring, cable ties and basic tools.   I take more when I go on the road trips with my friends, but I have a whole boot available, and we are pushing the cars harder.

I managed to get all this stuff squeezed into the side storage areas in the cargo area.

The post Preparing my 300TE for a family road trip appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

I was never happy with the battery I put in the car four years ago.   It was a DIN53MF battery and it was quite a bit shorter than the frame allowed.   This small size gave me only 500CCA; 54Ah and a reserve capacity of 90 minutes.   In theory nothing wrong with these specs, but my experience tells me that a small battery on these old cars just doesn’t last very long.   Even if a trickle charger is used.   The W111 battery is under different strains than in a modern car.   These old starters can draw quite a lot of current and older cars require more cranking.   Additionally, the alternator, at 35A, is quite small.   At idle, it probably barely provides enough power if multiple accessories are being used.

This time, I was keen to find a much better battery for the car.   I wanted at least 650CCA.   The battery also needed to fit properly in the factory frame.   This wasn’t as easy as you might think.    As far as I can tell, there is not a global standard for battery sizes.   From what I can tell, the USA uses ‘group sizes’, the are DIN sizes and then there are another set of battery sizes.   I couldn’t even find a nice simple publication of available battery sizes and what they meant.

That meant I had to go to to the manufacturer websites and examine their product catalogs as compared to the measurements I made.   Once I was close I had to take the frame into the various shops and try the frame.   I even contacted somebody selling a W111 sedan to see what their Bosch battery was!

I started to narrow it down to a two candidates.   A Century 67MF and a SuperCharge MF78.   In the end I went with neither!   The other frustration I found was that most battery stores carry at most two brands.   This made it hard to go to once place and try out their batteries.   I found a shop in Tempe that stocked a number of brands, including Century and SuperCharge.

The proprietor of the shop was a bit perplexed as to what I wanted to do but seemed happy enough for me to start trying my frame on his batteries.   He didn’t have the MF78 in stock, but I ended up finding something better.    I went with a SuperCharge MF66H.   This W111 battery gave me a big boost in capacity.   I now had 750CCA, 80Ah and a reserve capacity of 154 minutes.   I had previously ruled this size out as the frame wouldn’t fit.   The SuperCharge is a bit different to the other brands in that the top moulding allowed the frame to just fit over.   The major difference was the vent ports did not stick out to be flush with the side of the battery.

I did have to give the frame a few knocks with a rubber mallet to get it to go on, but overall it fit snugly.    To fit the battery I had to buy a battery terminal spreader as I had slightly damaged the terminal on the old battery installing it.

The last thing I did was to give the new battery a quick test, which showed up as 810 CCA, well above the rated capacity. This is pretty typical as most batteries are better than their rated capacity when new and gradually degrade over time.  As can be seen in the pictures above, the battery is a perfect fit in the frame and gives me the capacity I was looking for.

Due to the weather, I have not taken the car on a proper drive yet, but when moving it to get the DS out, it started up very quickly.

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I probably would have tried a bit harder with the reconditioning if it wasn’t for a 30% off sale on DIN batteries at Supercheap auto.    It seemed like a good opportunity to replace the battery with a new one.    The SLC calls for a DIN65L size.   The Century battery I purchased has a 660 CCA rating which is better than the 600 rating of the NRMA battery it replaced.

The SLC  battery is easy to remove.   The battery is held down with a bracket.   You’ll need a 10mm deep socket and a long extension to easily remove it.   With the battery removed, I was able to see the condition of the 450SLC battery tray.    Over the years leaks from various batteries had caused the battery tray to develop surface rust.   It seemed a good opportunity to repair this.

The 450SLC battery tray is held down with four bolts that can be removed with the same 10mm socket.   Once it is removed it is a simple matter to clean it up with a wire brush attachment on a drill.   Unfortunately the SLC was blocking in the other cars so I needed to make a quick job of it.     The battery tray cannot be seen once the battery is installed, so the objective was to reduce rust rather than cosmetic.   Still the wire brush attachment cleaned it up rather well.

The picture is not great as I was doing the job at night and I only had a mobile phone to illuminate.    It showed that the rust was just surface rust and the battery tray was in otherwise good condition.   In the ideal situation, I would have used some turps to clean the battery tray after this.   I didn’t have any so just blew the dust off it and used some rags.   After this most basic cleaning I primed the surface.   I went with a separate primer as I thought it would be more durable than a paint and prime.

Once the primer had tried, it was time to apply the top coats.   My 450SLC battery tray was starting to look pretty good again!    There is some grit in the paint where my cleaning job wasn’t quite up to scratch but overall I am pretty happy.

Once I let the paint properly dry, I cleaned the threads.   it was easier than masking them off, especially as I didn’t have tape on hand.   I had a cheap tap and die kit I purchased at Harbor Freight in the US which came in handy.

The other advantage of removing the 450SLC battery tray is the ability to clean underneath it.   There was a fair amount of dirt and debris that would be impossible to clear without removing the tray.   There was also a low point where a bit of surface rust had formed.   I treated this while i was at it.

Finally, a new battery was also an opportunity to fit an attachment for my Ctek battery charger.   I didn’t do a full disconnect switch like on the 250SE but the attachment makes it easier to connect the charger.   For some reason the Ctek attachments have really small eyelets so I cut those off and crimped in bigger ones that I could attach to the battery terminals.

I always write the month and year I replace the battery on top to quickly see its age later.   The battery I was replacing was from 2012.

The post 450SLC Battery tray appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

The current battery was a Super Charge MF50 Gold.    Its dimensions were 230mm long, 170mm wide and 180mm high (not including terminals).    My estimates from measuring the frame, its attachment points and the tray was that I could accept a battery that was up to 263mm long, 175mm wide and about 200mm high.

I spent a lot of time researching various battery sizes.   While there is some logic to the model numbers in terms of explaining the features of the batteries, I could not decipher the various sizes.    I spent a lot of time researching various battery sizes including the various recommendations from parts suppliers, manufactures and so on for the Citroen DS.   In the end, the best fit I could find was the Century NS70X MF.   The NS70 part of the model name refers to the size.   That is 259mm long, 171mm wide and 202mm high.   This increased size provided a significant capacity improvement – from 600 to 720 CCA and 60 to 85 AH.

As can be seen in the photo above, the battery fits almost perfectly in the Citroen DS battery frame.    The battery was not cheap, at $280, but I expect it to last a long time.   There is a very similar NS70LX MF.   The L means the terminals are on the other side.   You don’t want that one.

At some point I plan some upgrades to the wiring around the battery.   There are all sorts of auxilliary wires coming off the positive terminal.    Some of them have in-line fuses, but not all of them.    I plan to fit a bused fuse box with a single wire from the positive terminal to feed the headlight relays, radio and cooling fan.    I also plan to add a relay for the driving lights.   Basically that would mean a fuse for radio, fan, low beam, high beam and driving lights.   The fuse box would then feed the existing relays that can’t be seen to the left of the battery.    While I am there I will also fit a better disconnect and Ctek charger port like I did for the 250SE.

Once I had removed the old battery I gave it a quick test on my battery tester.    Only 184/600.   No wonder it was struggling to start the car.   In addition, it was starting to bulge on the sides.

As a comparison, the new Citroen DS battery is registering better than spec: 746/720.

I tried what the Ctek battery recondition can do to the old one.   My experience is that it can bring back batteries that are a bit tired, but cannot do much with a battery as far gone as this one.   That was the case again as all it was able to do was bring the CCA up to 200/600.

The post Citroen DS Battery appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

I think there are a few reasons for this.   Firstly, the battery is quite small, and like many things on the E-Type is under specified for the car.   The series 1 radiator fan is the classic example of this.   The small battery was probably primarily for cost, and secondarily for space.   Secondly, the Lucas starter is now over 60 years old and is not as efficient as it once was.     It is trying to turn over a long stroke 4.2 liter inline six, and the battery is too wimpy for the job,

I have three battery chargers.   The primary one is a CTEK MXS 5.0.   This is quite a nice charger, it has a 5A capacity, readouts to show what charge mode it is on, an AGM function and a recondition function.

I’ve tried the recondition function a couple of times with only moderate success.   Out of 3 attempts, only one of them has made a measurable difference on the battery.   In that case, I had left the door ajar on the 300SE.   After a jump start the NRMA cautioned me the battery needed replacement.   I confirmed this with my battery tester, but after running the recondition mode there was a big improvement.     The other two times the result was either same, or in one of them a bit worse.

There was really nothing to loose in trying the recondition mode on the E-Type battery as I planned to replace it.   I have a Solar BA5 battery tester which outputs the CCA rating of the battery when you plug it in.   The battery in the E-Type is rated at 620CCA.   Before the recondition, the output was 325CCA.   No wonder it was struggling to start the car!

After the test, I plugged in the CTEK MXS 5.0 battery recondition mode and left it for 24 hours.    The battery was indicating 13.7 volts, so it had charged.   The recondition mode had not done much, with the final output a dismal 344CCA.

My conclusion is that if the battery is otherwise good, but has suffered a major discharge, this recondition mode can make a big difference.   If the battery is otherwise on its way out, it really has no impact.     Before I replace this battery I want to research AGM batteries to see if that will work better in this car.   2-3 years does not seem enough in my book.    I also want to add a better disconnect switch and connection for the CTEK charger.   This would be similar to the 250SE.

Update 2/5/20:  I tried this mode on the battery on my Citroen DS.   It started out with a reading of 184/600.   After the recondition, I had a reading of 200/600.  An improvement, but not enough.   This confirms my experience.  The recondition mode does not help when the battery is too far gone.  It does make a difference after a deep discharge.

The post CTEK MXS 5.0 battery recondition mode appeared first on Classic Jalopy.

On closer inspection I think he is right.   the lower tray was clearly longer than the frame.    In addition, the frame is not in good shape.   There are sections where some of the metal has been cut away.   This was probably to fit an incorrect battery.   I therefore started looking for a replacement frame.

I was lucky enough to find one labelled to fit the W108, W109, W111 etc for bigger batteries.  A new reproduction out of Germany and in the picture it looked great!   Included with the rods to attach the W111 battery mounting frame to the tray (minus the wing nuts).

I tried the fit the frame last night, and it is huge.   I can only assume that there was a special order option for a very large sized battery, or maybe from a W100 where everything is super sized.   The photo below shows just how much longer the new frame is compared to the previous one.

This thing is gargantuan – hugely bigger than the tray it is supposed to fit onto.       The comparison is even funnier when you lay the two frames on top of each other.   The new one is about 50% larger than my current frame, which is only slightly too small.

I don’t have the specs for them, but I also need to try and research if the W111 battery mounting frame is a different size to the W108 or W109 unit, and if the one I have is for a W113.   Nevertheless, it is clear that what I thought would be a simple part comes in a variety of different sizes.

My next step is to look at its construction more carefully, as perhaps about 10cm can be cut from it and it re-welded up.   Since it’s a reproduction, i’m not ruining an original part.   Otherwise back to the drawing board to find the correct frame.   Perhaps my battery will have reached its 5 year life span by then.

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