1991 W124 Mercedes 300TE-24

If you gell with it , youll never sell it again. Best Merc i ever had and loads of space to transport car related stuff around. Great find!!!

The thing is though, I've already gelled with my W211, which is obviously just the newer version of this car. I just wanted to see what a W124 was like... it's been pretty good so far, but the progress of time means it's still nowhere near as good as the W211 is in my opinion!

I've been pretty busy working on this car the past couple of weeks so I'm due a good update soon... lots of little things keeping me busy on it.

ChasR, probably a good choice avoiding this engine if you want decent fuel economy, I haven't gone through a full tank yet but I'm on 220 miles to about 2/3rds of a tank so far, so it's not looking too good!

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Right then, a couple of days after my last post, the new coil turned up. Slightly odd thing because it was identical to the old one but mirrored exactly.

IMG_1312 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Not much of an issue, just had to move the wiring about a little to get things hooked back up when it was bolted in. This sorted out the non-running issue, the car fired right back in to life first turn of the key with the new coil.

Here's a few shots of the exterior and some of the rust spots. Nothing major, but certainly room for improvement. Previous owner said the car was machine polished last year - this would make sense with all the polish residue all over the car that had never been washed off! Hence all the white bits in the nooks and crannies.

IMG_1314 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1315 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Front right wing.

IMG_1316 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Rear right arch.

IMG_1317 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Rear right tail light.

IMG_1318 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Could probably do with a replacement tailgate I guess, it's like this in a couple of other spots too.

IMG_1319 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Right, so after swapping the coil over and getting it running, I waited another day for the replacement distributor cap and rotor arm to arrive. Here's a few comparison shots. Funny thing is that the old cap didn't look too grimy/old on the outside, but had seen some abuse on the inside.

IMG_1320 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1321 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1323 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1324 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Probably another good reason to swap the cap out.

IMG_1326 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

New rotor arm whilst I was in there.

IMG_1325 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

So with the car now running sweet, I wanted to address the couple of niggles mentioned in the ad for the car. Firstly I looked at the non-operational sunroof. Turned out it was the rear corner of the seal was grabbing the panel, stopping the rear edge from dropping down, I assume from the seal shrinking with age. A few whacks down on the panel as the button was being pressed and the panel popped down. I greased everything up and it works nicely now, quietest sunroof motor I've ever heard (or not heard).

IMG_1328 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

No photos, but I also got the passenger window moving as this was stuck as well, just from lack of use. Eased it down by hand whilst the button was pressed and then lubed up the window channels and now this works fine as well. Switch is a bit temperamental so might get a replacement.

That's all for now, plenty more to report on so I'll update again soon...

Mine is much happier on faster roads too, the gearbox seems eager to shift up but not down, so feels much perkier when the revs are up at faster speeds. My W211 was registered 31/12/04 so I think it's at the tail end of the "rusty" era? When I got it there was a massive hole in the driver's wing but this turned out to be a pattern replacement that had rotted through. I found an OEM aluminium wing on a car breaking for spares so now mine's completely rust free (as far as I know anyway).

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Carrying on with the W124, the next thing I moved on to was cleaning the interior. It was pretty filthy so it took me a good few days on and off to get everything scrubbed up nicely, and I started from the boot. The car came with this proper load liner, but I'll never need it and I don't think it's very aesthetically pleasing, so I'll be selling this soon (if anyone on here happens to want it, send me a PM).

IMG_1329 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

I took out the load liner and then flipped up the rear facing child seats. The mountings for the base had come apart/are broken so I had to fiddle with it to get the base reattached to it's panel. The hinges for the base panel were also seized pretty solid and one of them is actually snapped. So the rear seat assembly is a little tired, but the leather is perfect so it's all useable if anyone ever wanted to use it!

IMG_1330 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

There's a bit of dampness in the boot floor too, which I haven't gotten to the bottom of yet. The child seat base was damp on the surface when I first got to it, and then after coincidentally leaving it propped up like this overnight I found a puddle of green water on the floor. That'll be where some of the funky smell was coming from then!

IMG_1335 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1336 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

I went over all the carpets with interior shampoo and over all the leather with leather cleaner and then some leather feed. I was surprised at the difference it made to be honest. It's hard to tell in photos, but this is with the right half scrubbed clean and the left half with some cleaner sprayed on but not yet cleaned. You can sort of see the divide line in the middle from the dirty to the clean bit.

IMG_1351 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Should've taken more before photos... but here's the rear facing seats all cleaned and reassembled. Unfortunately you can see the snapped and seized hinge on the bottom left where it's punctured the leather flap.

IMG_1354 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Whilst I was cleaning the boot, I also started checking out the rear washer system, as it wasn't working. I pulled out the reservoir that sits in the boot floor and found that the pump wasn't working. I pulled the pump out and then realised I'd ripped the pump seal, so needed to get a new of those along with a new pump.

IMG_1331 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1332 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

I managed to find the seal on ebay just as a generic Mercedes washer pump seal.

IMG_1350 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Then a new washer pump (on the right).

IMG_1385 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Unfortunately after getting it back together and in the car, the washer still wasn't working! I eventually found that the pump isn't getting any power when the switch is pressed. From a little research it seems that the power is drawn from the rear wiper mechanism (which is also a little dodgy in that it doesn't park). I tried taking apart the rear wiper mechanism and cleaning it up and putting it back together again but that made no difference. So maybe a new rear wiper unit would sort it out, but for now the system is still broken.

Moving on from that, the other niggle mentioned in the ad was that the radio didn't turn on. I pulled the unit out and found that the fuse had blown. I replaced the fuse and it fired back in to life, but obviously the fuse must've blown for a reason. There's a receipt in the history for the car that shows this radio was a NOS unit fitted only a couple of years back. After a bit of fishing around, I found this on the switched live...

IMG_1339 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1340 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Not ideal. So I redid that bit with some crimped insulated connectors rather than just twisted wires and just popped everything back in to place - nice and easy and free to sort!

Related to the radio was the electric aerial, which was very much not working. It was a bit bent and stuck in the up position.

IMG_1342 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

In fact, it wasn't even attached.

IMG_1343 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

So I got a cheap universal electric aerial from ebay, as the one in the car already was a universal one too (as you can also see from the wiring).

IMG_1368 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1370 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

The replacement unit was pretty much identical in fixing points so it didn't take long to get it installed in the right location. It's a bit noisy but it works.

IMG_1371 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1372 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Flicking around a bit, I wanted to tidy up the plug wire cover on the engine. Such a prominent bit of scripting needed a repaint I thought.

IMG_1313 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1346 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

I did start masking out the letters, but realised that would take ages and I probably wouldn't get a decent result. So I resorted to brushing the paint on by hand - not ideal but better than it was before. Shame about the missing centre to the Mercedes badge, but there's nothing I can really do about it. The badge is an odd size and there's not going to be many of these engine cover bits around second hand.

IMG_1347 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Whilst in the engine bay, it reminds me to mention that the car had a brand new battery and a reconditioned alternator fitted very recently.

IMG_1348 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

The under-bonnet insulation is missing, so I've bought a replacement for that. Not fitted it yet though.

IMG_1349 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Right, back to interior cleaning. After I folded up the base of the rear seats (the main rear seats, not the child ones), I found a mysterious "fourth" seat belt sitting under here.

IMG_1355 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

It had been bolted in to the factory seat belt mounting points and was definitely from a different car, as you can see by the buckle differences.

IMG_1356 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1357 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

No idea what that would've been used for, but I didn't want it there (it was also stopping the rear seat from being latched in properly) so I whipped it out. You can see it's a standard three point belt... strange.

IMG_1359 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

With the rear seats folded down I got scrubbing and cleaned up the carpets very nicely. Dog guard is a little tatty on the edges but still works.

IMG_1360 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Tried out that detailers thing of vacuuming stripes in to the carpet... actually quite fun in an OCD kind of way.

IMG_1373 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Another issue the car has is that the passenger side heater system only pumps out hot air. The car has dual zone control in the front (very fancy for 1991 I thought), and it's controlled through this "duovalve" in the engine bay, which is a double solenoid arrangement that moves a valve up and down to control the flow of heat in to either side of the cabin.

IMG_1361 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

I wanted to strip it down and make sure nothing was seized or clogged, so I got it out of the car and took it to pieces. The coolant is rusty water at the moment, but aside from that it seemed clear in there.

IMG_1362 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1363 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1365 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

IMG_1366 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

I cleaned off all that sealant that someone had put on there and I renewed the o-rings before putting it back together.

IMG_1367 by Sven Cumner, on Flickr

Nothing really seemed a-miss in there so I put everything back together and got it back in the car. Unfortunately it's still the same, so I assume the passenger valve isn't working for some reason. I can put a screw driver to it and listen for a click when I plug and unplug the valve unit and both sides of the unit sound the same. I might get another valve to try, but not sure if it's that bad of an issue to warrant fussing over.

That'll do for now, still plenty more to cover so I'll be back soon...

Damp in the boot area could be down to dried out seals on the quarter windows.

Love it, right up my street.

I had one of these years ago, great car! If you run it with the gearbox in "E" (economy) it'll always pull away in 2nd gear, but if you put it in "S" (standard), it'll kick down into 1st when you nail it, quite a surprise when it first happens, a little hesitation, then sideways & BMWs, etc disappearing in the rear view mirror!!

Always enjoy your threads, especially now you have a 124.

There a thread on pistonheads called titivating my Mercedes 124. It's actually a 300 d but most of the thread should give useful tips for you.

It sounds like you are in the same dilemna as me! These W124s are just awesome things to waft around in! At least you have pace in yours!

The car is certainly heading in the right direction! You've reminded me that I need some new plates. I suspect the rear will still be a GB plate however ; I may go abroad in it . But I'm debating between pressed plates like yours or pre-2000 number plates.

It's surprising the difference new tyres can make to the car eh?