Hello retro riders! Here is my belated intro, I must apologise for all the writing, wish I could write my uni assignments this easily! I've tried to break it up with pics.
Well I thought it was about time I began my retro-rides journey and created my very own readers rides thread.
I’m pretty new to the forum but the Benz is not, some of you will recognise it as Mark’s (markbognor) old car. His thread on this car is here retrorides.proboards86.com/index.cgi?board=readersrides&action=display&thread=36000.
Anyway I bought the car off him early December I believe, took a look around the car and liked what I saw very much! Then we took it down to a local garage for an MOT to see exactly what work needed doing to get it through.
It failed on:
Nearside and offside brake pipes excessively corroded.
Rear Exhaust mount missing.
Offside rear subframe mounting excessively corroded
Offside front seatbelt anchorage excessively corroded
Parking brake efficiency below minimum requirement
The guy gave me a price of £370 to do the welding and other work needed to get it through, so a deal was done with Mark and by mid-December the car was ready to be collected. I picked it up with my Dad, paid the garage, then another hundred quid later it had 6 months tax and I was good to go! ….well I would have been if the car would’ve started!
The guys at the garage said it had been starting on the button every time whilst they were working on it, and said it had probably ran out of fuel. So my Dad went down to the petrol station with a jerry can and we filled her up… still nothing!
So the guys at the garage took the air filter off and I think they were squirting brake cleaner down there?? Apparently it’s similar to quick start.
After a few squirts of that it eventually fired into life and we drove back to the petrol station for a final fill up (with the engine running!) and began our journey back to Bromley…. but then a few miles down the road the car cut out for absolutely no reason! This being my first biggish engined and relatively luxury car I didn’t even notice at first. Luckily it started again without any bother so I carried on… then it happened again! It started fine straight after this time too.
..Then in possibly the worst place, just off a roundabout onto a dual carriageway it cut out a third time, and wouldn’t start again. balderdash I thought, my Dad saw and pulled over behind me. After much ranting from him about “this is what happens when you buy an old car” he phoned the AA who told us due to our dangerous location we’d have to inform the Police. Thank GOD I was all legit on insurance, tax etc! A few scary minutes later, after witnessing countless Lorries come close to turning both our cars into a Mercedes sandwich, I was being towed to the nearest lay-by by a very friendly Policeman. He even said it was a lovely car and I never saw him doing any kind of insurance check, which I was expecting due to my relatively young age for such a car.
By now the AA van had joined the convoy, it was quite a spectacular show of flashing lights haha.
Within 5 minutes the AA man had found the problem, it was a dry connection on a green cable going to the nearside wing, I think he said it was the distributor amplifier if there is such a thing??
He gave it a scrape out and plugged it back in, haven’t had any problems since!
We made it back to Bromley no problems at all. I showed my friends and they all think it’s the coolest thing any of us have ever bought ;D.
Over the next few days the car didn’t get much use, just the occasional trip to my friends’ houses. One night I started it up and it was faltering really badly, it wouldn’t even pull itself out of my drive. Turned out not to be firing on one cylinder, the next morning my Dad helped me clean up the spark plugs… well he cracked one haha, but he had some old spares so we whacked one of those in and it was firing on all 4 again.
Christmas came and I got a load of servicing items, air filter, oil filter, spark plugs and new oil. So Boxing day I got cracking… for the first time ever. Armed with the Merc technical manual I slowly followed the instructions. It was fooking cold and took me forever, but in reality the engine was so easy to work on, everything was really accessible and straight forward once I got over the initial fear.
I was pretty miffed my Dad wouldn’t help me but I understand now it’s like a rite of passage you have to go through alone haha.
I was also pleased to notice that the sump doesn’t look too mashed at all considering how low the car is. I didn’t really notice any difference after the service, but I’m damn pleased with myself that I did it and didn’t break anything!
A few days after the service I kept noticing a smell of petrol around our driveway, I couldn’t tell if it was from the Merc or not. Of course sods law the same evening I put 20 quids worth of go-go juice in, a few hours later whilst driving some friends home (at the dead of night luckily) it pisses it all out over the road .
I guess I was lucky though, it did get us to just outside a friend’s house, and I stopped right next to a parking space too, so we were able to push it in to the space and leave it til the next day. Again, a very angry Dad picks me up from the side of the road haha.
We get up early the next day and bomb round there, jack the car up and take a look. The rubber pipe going from the fuel tank to the fuel pump/filter had come away on the pump end; it looked pretty perished on the end too.
One trip to halfords later we had a jubilee clip. Everything around that area was on rubber pipes so had a bit of flex in it. We used a Stanley knife and chopped away the perished end of the pipe, slotted it back onto the fuel pump and tightening it with the jubilee clip… after covering my face in petrol of course .
As you can imagine I was feeling quite nervous about putting another 20 quids worth of fuel in there but the tank needed filling, it was pretty much running off fumes to the station. However there was no need to be, it’s been fine ever since!
When I bought the car from Mark the sale included a whole spares car, unfortunately I couldn’t take advantage of it as I’ve no space at Uni in Southampton and there’s no way in hell my Dad will keep it in Bromley, plus it would’ve been a load of expense/hassle getting it there.
I did however, with Marks help (thanks again dude!), take the front wings which I’ll be tidying up and replacing my grotty ones with over Summer, and the interior as the drivers seat in the working one is proper saggy.
Unfortunately the interior in the breaker was black whereas the driver’s interior is blue. Not ideal but the seats were in such better condition it was worth it.
So I replaced those, it would’ve been so easy too if I hadn’t of been such a douche and ask mark to remove the runners from the black seats so save on space/weight. Seriously, WTF was I thinking!?
Aaaanyway after much swearing and cut knuckles, the runners were swapped over and the seats went in lovely jubbly…. which is when I noticed the new seats didn’t have the rear headrests or the front armrest.. DOH! They also didn’t have the fire extinguisher, but I was pleased about that because it looked a bit rubbish and it was scaring my friends haha. My Dad managed to get the armrest and headrests off the old interior though so maybe I can just dye them black and see how they look.
The car is now in Southampton with me, it did the journey perfectly, such a relaxing car! Only issues I’ve had with it down here was on one occasion on a shameless hungover drive to McDonalds drive-thru. I think it was the same problem of firing on only 3 cylinders, but it kept stalling whenever I tried to pull away from standing. By the time I was heading back it sorted itself out though, so maybe it was just because I hadn’t used it for a few days previously?
So, I’ve had my ups and downs with the car so far, but I’m definitely loving it and it’s taught me so much about cars and mechanics in general already.
My only plans so far are some wire wheels for the summer, I’ve got a car PC but still very unsure about fitting it as the boot seems to be very damp. Fit the rear headrest and front arm rest if they don’t look too gash once I’ve dyed them.
I’ve also found a very small rust hole in the gutter where the nearside bonnet hinge lives which is letting water into the footwells on that side when it rains and making the carpet rather soggy which isn’t ideal. I’ve seen that davemk1gti has advertised a welding service in the Hampshire area but this rust looks totally inaccessible from what I can see. I’ll try and get a pic up at some point, maybe someone with more experience than me (so everyone on this forum then!) could give some advice?
And finally, when I’m back in Bromley next I’d like to change the coolant, change the fuel filter and do the gearbox oil/filter. The gear changes are right now are reeeeeeeeeally slow, the gearbox oil is below minimum which obviously isn’t helping, but I can’t find ANYWHERE what gearbox oil to use so I can at least for the time being top it up. Can anyone help me here??
Cheers for reading!
Well I thought it was about time I began my retro-rides journey and created my very own readers rides thread.
I’m pretty new to the forum but the Benz is not, some of you will recognise it as Mark’s (markbognor) old car. His thread on this car is here retrorides.proboards86.com/index.cgi?board=readersrides&action=display&thread=36000.
Anyway I bought the car off him early December I believe, took a look around the car and liked what I saw very much! Then we took it down to a local garage for an MOT to see exactly what work needed doing to get it through.
It failed on:
Nearside and offside brake pipes excessively corroded.
Rear Exhaust mount missing.
Offside rear subframe mounting excessively corroded
Offside front seatbelt anchorage excessively corroded
Parking brake efficiency below minimum requirement
The guy gave me a price of £370 to do the welding and other work needed to get it through, so a deal was done with Mark and by mid-December the car was ready to be collected. I picked it up with my Dad, paid the garage, then another hundred quid later it had 6 months tax and I was good to go! ….well I would have been if the car would’ve started!
The guys at the garage said it had been starting on the button every time whilst they were working on it, and said it had probably ran out of fuel. So my Dad went down to the petrol station with a jerry can and we filled her up… still nothing!
So the guys at the garage took the air filter off and I think they were squirting brake cleaner down there?? Apparently it’s similar to quick start.
After a few squirts of that it eventually fired into life and we drove back to the petrol station for a final fill up (with the engine running!) and began our journey back to Bromley…. but then a few miles down the road the car cut out for absolutely no reason! This being my first biggish engined and relatively luxury car I didn’t even notice at first. Luckily it started again without any bother so I carried on… then it happened again! It started fine straight after this time too.
..Then in possibly the worst place, just off a roundabout onto a dual carriageway it cut out a third time, and wouldn’t start again. balderdash I thought, my Dad saw and pulled over behind me. After much ranting from him about “this is what happens when you buy an old car” he phoned the AA who told us due to our dangerous location we’d have to inform the Police. Thank GOD I was all legit on insurance, tax etc! A few scary minutes later, after witnessing countless Lorries come close to turning both our cars into a Mercedes sandwich, I was being towed to the nearest lay-by by a very friendly Policeman. He even said it was a lovely car and I never saw him doing any kind of insurance check, which I was expecting due to my relatively young age for such a car.
By now the AA van had joined the convoy, it was quite a spectacular show of flashing lights haha.
Within 5 minutes the AA man had found the problem, it was a dry connection on a green cable going to the nearside wing, I think he said it was the distributor amplifier if there is such a thing??
He gave it a scrape out and plugged it back in, haven’t had any problems since!
We made it back to Bromley no problems at all. I showed my friends and they all think it’s the coolest thing any of us have ever bought ;D.
Over the next few days the car didn’t get much use, just the occasional trip to my friends’ houses. One night I started it up and it was faltering really badly, it wouldn’t even pull itself out of my drive. Turned out not to be firing on one cylinder, the next morning my Dad helped me clean up the spark plugs… well he cracked one haha, but he had some old spares so we whacked one of those in and it was firing on all 4 again.
Christmas came and I got a load of servicing items, air filter, oil filter, spark plugs and new oil. So Boxing day I got cracking… for the first time ever. Armed with the Merc technical manual I slowly followed the instructions. It was fooking cold and took me forever, but in reality the engine was so easy to work on, everything was really accessible and straight forward once I got over the initial fear.
I was pretty miffed my Dad wouldn’t help me but I understand now it’s like a rite of passage you have to go through alone haha.
I was also pleased to notice that the sump doesn’t look too mashed at all considering how low the car is. I didn’t really notice any difference after the service, but I’m damn pleased with myself that I did it and didn’t break anything!
A few days after the service I kept noticing a smell of petrol around our driveway, I couldn’t tell if it was from the Merc or not. Of course sods law the same evening I put 20 quids worth of go-go juice in, a few hours later whilst driving some friends home (at the dead of night luckily) it pisses it all out over the road .
I guess I was lucky though, it did get us to just outside a friend’s house, and I stopped right next to a parking space too, so we were able to push it in to the space and leave it til the next day. Again, a very angry Dad picks me up from the side of the road haha.
We get up early the next day and bomb round there, jack the car up and take a look. The rubber pipe going from the fuel tank to the fuel pump/filter had come away on the pump end; it looked pretty perished on the end too.
One trip to halfords later we had a jubilee clip. Everything around that area was on rubber pipes so had a bit of flex in it. We used a Stanley knife and chopped away the perished end of the pipe, slotted it back onto the fuel pump and tightening it with the jubilee clip… after covering my face in petrol of course .
As you can imagine I was feeling quite nervous about putting another 20 quids worth of fuel in there but the tank needed filling, it was pretty much running off fumes to the station. However there was no need to be, it’s been fine ever since!
When I bought the car from Mark the sale included a whole spares car, unfortunately I couldn’t take advantage of it as I’ve no space at Uni in Southampton and there’s no way in hell my Dad will keep it in Bromley, plus it would’ve been a load of expense/hassle getting it there.
I did however, with Marks help (thanks again dude!), take the front wings which I’ll be tidying up and replacing my grotty ones with over Summer, and the interior as the drivers seat in the working one is proper saggy.
Unfortunately the interior in the breaker was black whereas the driver’s interior is blue. Not ideal but the seats were in such better condition it was worth it.
So I replaced those, it would’ve been so easy too if I hadn’t of been such a douche and ask mark to remove the runners from the black seats so save on space/weight. Seriously, WTF was I thinking!?
Aaaanyway after much swearing and cut knuckles, the runners were swapped over and the seats went in lovely jubbly…. which is when I noticed the new seats didn’t have the rear headrests or the front armrest.. DOH! They also didn’t have the fire extinguisher, but I was pleased about that because it looked a bit rubbish and it was scaring my friends haha. My Dad managed to get the armrest and headrests off the old interior though so maybe I can just dye them black and see how they look.
The car is now in Southampton with me, it did the journey perfectly, such a relaxing car! Only issues I’ve had with it down here was on one occasion on a shameless hungover drive to McDonalds drive-thru. I think it was the same problem of firing on only 3 cylinders, but it kept stalling whenever I tried to pull away from standing. By the time I was heading back it sorted itself out though, so maybe it was just because I hadn’t used it for a few days previously?
So, I’ve had my ups and downs with the car so far, but I’m definitely loving it and it’s taught me so much about cars and mechanics in general already.
My only plans so far are some wire wheels for the summer, I’ve got a car PC but still very unsure about fitting it as the boot seems to be very damp. Fit the rear headrest and front arm rest if they don’t look too gash once I’ve dyed them.
I’ve also found a very small rust hole in the gutter where the nearside bonnet hinge lives which is letting water into the footwells on that side when it rains and making the carpet rather soggy which isn’t ideal. I’ve seen that davemk1gti has advertised a welding service in the Hampshire area but this rust looks totally inaccessible from what I can see. I’ll try and get a pic up at some point, maybe someone with more experience than me (so everyone on this forum then!) could give some advice?
And finally, when I’m back in Bromley next I’d like to change the coolant, change the fuel filter and do the gearbox oil/filter. The gear changes are right now are reeeeeeeeeally slow, the gearbox oil is below minimum which obviously isn’t helping, but I can’t find ANYWHERE what gearbox oil to use so I can at least for the time being top it up. Can anyone help me here??
Cheers for reading!
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