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Real men drive without turbos. Daily driver OM616.912 represent. I'm still loving my 1981 240D 4-speed. It's slow, but comfy! It's also been very easy to work on, and asks for just enough maintenance to keep me interested.
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Nov 26, 2010 19:47
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Yeah, the only one I know of that's really easy to work on is the W123 cars like my 240d. There is a reason these things are bush taxis in South Africa, and it's because they don't break often and when they do they can be repaired by hitting them with rocks.
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Nov 27, 2010 03:46
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CommieGIR posted:Get an electric vacuum pump and put a plate over the mechanical vacuum pump Second time I've heard this bit of advice. Something about the mechanical pumps dumping bearings into the engine. Do you know of a commonly used plan and parts list for this modification?
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Nov 27, 2010 16:08
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IOwnCalculus posted:I don't think any of the sticks make it to the US these days. I've never driven a Mercedes stick but I've always heard them described as less-than-desirable manual gearboxes, as opposed to what you'd find in a BMW or a Mazda. Certainly the 4-speed in my 240d is nothing to write home about. You feel very removed from the gearbox when shifting. Remember that video arcade classic "Hard Drivin"? It's a lot like that shifter. It doesn't actually feel like you are moving anything beyond the shifter itself. However, it will remind you that there is actually a physical link between the shifter and the cogbox if you overrun the syncros. Other than that, nothing. I wouldn't have the car without the manual though. No way do I want a 30 year old Mercedes automatic mystery box.
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Dec 2, 2010 22:01
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Mad Dragon posted:Who made MB automatics back then? I'm guessing Mercedes did. The 240d autobox from my year is the W3A040, which appears to be Mercedes only in application.
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Dec 2, 2010 22:43
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Anyone here ever replace a water pump on a W123 240d? I'm about to.
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Dec 7, 2010 23:30
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Well I'm halfway through my water pump replacement. Since I'm new to the car, I'm taking my time and carefully making each step. The car is still proving to be remarkably easy to work on. I was reading there were some space issue getting the fan off, guys were talking about grinding down 10mm box-end wrenches and things. However I was able to shove my fat paws in place with a ratchet and 10mm socket just fine. The fan shroud was held in place by two easy clips at the top, and an interference fit at the bottom. The fan came loose with four bolts. The water pump is driven by the alternator belt, and the alternator mount provides tension, so the alternator had to come loose. This gave me the most trouble. There was a nut on the back of the alternator mount that had to be loosened and access was interfered by an A/C hose. I was able to get a small adjustable wrench on it though, and then run the tension mechanism down until I could remove the pully from the water pump. The water pump itself was held in by 5 easily accessed bolts. They came easy, and with the first one out it began pissing coolant from the hole. I think I will re-install the bolts with a bit of RTV on them. With all the bolts removed, the water pump will rest in place. Rubber mallet application to the old water pump is suggested, however I couldn't find mine so I used a 1/2 inch drive Craftsman ratchet to bang on it. It came out easily enough, and the gasket remained stuck to the water pump. I sprayed some orange cleaner on the gasket surface on the engine side and called it a night cause I had to put the kids to bed. I'll finish up tomorrow (now today).
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Dec 8, 2010 16:28
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You Am I posted:Try and replace a water pump on a six cylinder model of that car. Bloody knuckles indeed. I bet, the turbodiesel (300D) are a five cylinder though, is that what you are talking about? Do the 300D have different engine mounting? I'd guess it have to be a bit further back in the bay.
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Dec 8, 2010 23:31
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You Am I posted:No, a petrol six like the 280 motor Ah. Yeah never messed with that. Those are the relatively low-spec gas engines, correct? Just reiterates how while I love the cars like the 6.9 and the Grosser I'd never ever ever be convinced to own one. Anyway, I made NO progress today. Here's my working environment. A nice thing about the Mercedes W123 cars is how wide the hood will open. One can theoretically pull an engine without removing the hood. And at full-open they are positively locked up, so they can't fall on you.  A little closer shot of the bits I'm working on. Very easy to reach and do anything.  This may actually be working to my detriment. I'm used to having little access, awkward angles and impossible to torque bolts. With so much room I snapped a water pump bolt with ease.  The loving thing is tiny anyway. I'm afraid after years of hitting IH trucks with progressively larger hammers I've become perhaps a bit brutish in my work. Anyway, the other end of the drat thing was nearly flush with the block, but enough stuck out I was able to slot it with a Dremel and screw it out with a flathead.  So I guess until I can get to the hardware store tomorrow I can just shove this thing up my rear end and twirl it around.  To add insult to injury, the parts-car 240d wouldn't start. I put it outside to work on the good car and it got down to like 15 degrees last night, so in the early morning it just chugged for a bit, made some smoke, and drained it's battery. I drove the pickup to work and plugged a charger into the battery of the parts car, I also got smart enough to plug in the block heater. DERP. 
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Dec 9, 2010 02:36
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So my nephew came over, I sold the 240d parts-car to him a couple weeks back. It's filthy because Toaster Pastry parked it under a tree on the side of his old house a left it there for months. I don't blame him, to Toaster Pastry it was just a parts car. Anyway, we finally washed it today. The soap was washing off the car colored white from all the damaged chalky paint rinsing off. However I found that some liberal application of wax would restore a shine. I gave my nephew a set of white MB hubcaps for Christmas. Click here for the full 1296x968 image. I have to say, it's really starting to look pretty good. I've also decided I want my wheels to be white as well. So the mags are going to get powder-coated. trouser chili fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Dec 22, 2010 |
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Dec 22, 2010 02:40
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toaster_pastry posted:'Twas the best car I have ever owned. Take good care of her, TC. Just washed her up yesterday. Still shines but that's to be expected. What was really surprising was how good the paint on the parts car actually is once we scrubbed off whatever was infesting it.
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Dec 23, 2010 03:44
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Baby Hitler posted:Drove a 240D, 5 speed euro swapped 300SD turbo, and a unimog. The unimog had the best shifter with descriptions of lovely and agricultural. Was that my 240d you drove when Toaster Pastry came to visit? The shifter feel is basically non-existent. It's not hard to figure out where you are in the pattern, but I was surprised by the complete lack of tension in the shifter. It just stays where-ever you put it, in gear or not. Reminds me of the shifter in the Arcade classic "Hard Drivin". When you move this, it does a thing, then something happens, and you accelerate even slower.
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Dec 26, 2010 18:47
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Anyone with any experience replacing speakers in a W123? They sound pretty good for knocking on 30 years of age, but that's not exactly a glowing review. I've been finding some info that Mercedes saw fit to shove in some weird size speakers, but I've found little info regarding what will fit.
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Feb 15, 2011 23:11
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Rontalvos posted:
Probably not, no. In the US, that answer would likely be the 240d. The 300D is usually turbocharged (added complexity), and always has an automatic transmission. The automatic transmission, like drat-near everything else in the car, is vacuum controlled, so when your power locks quit working, your transmission doesn't shift right. Yes, really. The 300d also usually has more "luxury" crap like automatic climate control. This stuff, when it breaks, and it will break because it's 30 years old, is expensive to repair. A base-model 240d with manual transmission is much easier to keep on the road, but you do get something like half the horsepower that a 300d would have. Also, I wouldn't run WVO, the W123 diesel tolerates it better than most, but I mean it "tolerates" it. Crack it into BIO and your car will be much happier. Also note that when you begin to run BIO you're likely to go through quite a few fuel filters at first, especially on a higher-mileage vehicle.
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Feb 16, 2011 15:46
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Went to a buddies house, this followed me home. Looks decent enough, right?  Well....  Oh, well that's not too bad a little bondo and some some paint, probably get this trunk looking nice at the same time, right?  Uhhhh  Oh.  Well, maybe the interior is nice.  Hmmmmm, maybe not.  Oh well, it's pretty decent for the price of "take it away from me, the title is in the glovebox and the keys in the ignition and you can pay me whatever you think it's worth whenever you get that figured out". And if you don't know already, it's a 1985 300SD. Turbo 5-pot compression igniter with 300,000 miles clocked before the odo froze several years back. It runs out great, even the transmission works right as well as all the electrics. Don't know what exactly I'm going to do with it. I tried to get it in the hands of my nephew who is turning 16 soon, has no car and no money and no other prospects of getting a car anytime soon. He drove the car and liked it, but then a week later I heard fifth-hand news that he wasn't interested anymore or something I don't know what the gently caress. trouser chili fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Apr 12, 2011 |
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Apr 12, 2011 22:44
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Francis Baconator posted:You know, I've been looking for a new project ever since things got nice and reliable with my 2010 TSX... Your 4th in line. A buddy in Illinois wants it, then a guy at work, then fellow goon "BrokenKnucklez". Here's the info I sent to BrokenKnucklez. quote:Mechanically, everything that makes it drive (and reverse) works great. I just tweaked the ALDA a bit and readjusted the accelerator linkages and it'll scratch 2nd gear now. Transmission shifts positively and firmly on the 1-2, every other shift is butter-smooth and perfect. It really runs well, likes to cruise 70mph and does so effortlessly. Only thing that ruins that experience is that the steering has a pronounced pull to the right.
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Apr 14, 2011 01:44
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JnnyThndrs posted:Goddamn it, that's the spitting image of the car I took my date to the senior prom in. Well...the interior looked better and there wasn't any rust, but the HVAC was just as hosed. Did any of them EVER work right? Not sure if it's a Becker or not. It's not the same unit as is in my 240d, which is a simple and straightforward AM/FM/cassette unit with analog tuning. The 300sd unit has digital tuning and an incomprehensible series of buttons, all of which work to make the sounds coming from the speakers sound appreciably worse.
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Apr 14, 2011 13:13
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I've been into Internationals my whole life, but only owned 3 trucks. I've been into Mercedes for maybe a couple of years at most, buying my first only six months ago. Today I'm looking at my fourth. A friend's friend's grandfather owned this car.  It's a 420SEL. Smoke weed every day.  Unlike my last w126 there is a really nice interior in this car.    Anyway it's mine for a grand, only problem, it won't start. No spark. I pulled the cap and found it and the rotor roached out. Cleaned them up with some sandpaper but still nothing. I think it could be the ignition module, which is a $2,500 part new aftermarket, but I'm sure I can find one in a junkyard. Any tips to diagnose? trouser chili fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Jun 13, 2011 |
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Jun 13, 2011 21:03
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You Am I posted:Have you checked the coil? The lead running between it and the distributor might be buggered. The seller has replaced the coil in attempt to get it going again. I didn't bring a multimeter when I went to look at it, I'm going to hit a junkyard and pick up a few ignition modules and maybe a few crankshaft position sensors. Not sure what else it could be.
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Jun 14, 2011 00:53
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So it's starting to look like I'm going to be putting together a diesel w123 rallyx car. I've found a good 240d automatic to start with. I want to source a 300d turbodiesel an 240d manual transmission to complete the powertrain. Right now I'm struggling with tires. Stock is 195/75/14, and there just isn't much available in 14. I thought about trying to pick up some 15 inch bundts, but holy he'll they're hard to find and very expensive. New set on eBay right now for $2,000. Not gunna happen.
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Jul 18, 2011 00:52
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CommieGIR posted:Yeah.....I'm avoiding opening the AC compressor lines at ALL, in fact for the engine removal tonight, I just dropped the compressor out of the way, lines and all Those aren't the compressor lines, thats the mess behind the dash that fails to control the HVAC and causes your transmission to not shift correctly. I'd seriously look for a donor 240d and convert to the simple manual controls they are equipped with. That and I'd convert to the 240d manual transmission and spring suspension.
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Jul 23, 2011 04:25
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That is that motor the dirty dieselers say to avoid. I don't know much about it myself. I'd guess that if it has 191k then it's not one of the afflicted motors, but I'm not entirely sure that's the long and short of it either. One thing I'd be sure to check is the coolant. If it has any signs of oil contamination, run.
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Aug 6, 2011 02:39
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So, anyone here ever pull a W123 rear subframe? I'm tired of my 240d steering itself all over the drat road.
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Aug 8, 2011 17:06
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LUBE UP YOUR BUTT posted:Sweet a merc thread! I'm a student in perth looking for a reliable and low maintenance car, how is a 2002 W203 C180 for that? I can't stop laughing at username and question combo.
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Sep 25, 2011 15:32
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I got tired of breaking those shitass keys Mercedes sells to W123 owners these days, so I made this: It's made from a chunk of Zebrano I picked up from a woodworking store for 2 bucks. I cut two wafers from it, routed out a part of one of the slices with a rotozip with a depth guide so the key could set in there. Then sanded the mating surfaces smooth and glued with tightbond III in a vice. After that I had a workable key again, and began sanding the wood into the shape of the original key. The hole was created with large drill bit, and finally finished with Minwax Polyshade in Honey Pine. It's not perfect and obviously hand made by someone with little woodworking experience, but it's strong and looks pretty good and matches the Zebrano wood dashboard of my 240d. I've got my knife shoved in the old plastic head to show how they commonly break these days.
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Dec 27, 2011 17:16
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SLAMMYsosa posted:There's a person in my area trying to tell their european 79 300D for 4500, which to me seems really, really steep. It's got 170k miles on it and allegedly has the maintenance records and everything, and while I haven't personally looked at it yet (waiting for the price to drop) I just feel like that's a pretty steep price tag when I can get a comparable 240d for a quarter of the price. I would think given a really nice body and a good color combination that it would be worth it. I'd be interested. If it has a five-speed manual, even more so. A five-speed is rare as can be, even more so than a four-speed manual 300d.
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Aug 1, 2012 15:22
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SLAMMYsosa posted:It's a four-speed manual. One of the craigslist ads is here, with pictures. I'm not crazy about the color combination but it does appear to be in pretty good condition. They first were trying to sell it for 5500, then dropped the price to 4800, and it's been at 4500 for a while. I keep meaning to go take a look at it but I haven't had much time off work the past couple weeks. And also I've been waiting for the price to drop some more since I'd rather pay 3500 for the thing. Those are the Euro style headlamps. They're desirable but I don't actually like them much. The car looks pretty solid but filthy. I'd still be interested, but at less than $4,500.
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Aug 2, 2012 16:14
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SLAMMYsosa posted:what do you think a fair price would be if the compression is good? All the other w123s around here are either auto 240ds or overpriced 300 turbos. Well, I think it's in the neighborhood. Locality matters a lot as well. I think $4000 would be pretty fair to both the seller and the buyer, maybe a bit more toward the seller. $3,500 and the scales are tipped to the buyer I think. I paid a bit over $4,500 for this manual transmission 240d, but it came with another automatic-equipped 240d and a set of LED headlamps. The other 240d sold for a grand and the headlamps sell for about $250 a piece. I think I made out pretty well. I'd like to upgrade it someday to a 300d motor, essentially ending with the same car you are looking at buying. I'm guessing the conversion will cost me about $1000. You'll still have those svelte euro bumpers though, whereas I'll have Federal park-bench bumpers. The euro bumpers are quite desirable but given how I use my 240d, I'm pretty happy with the battle bumpers. If however I were to also switch to the euro bumpers I'd probably be looking at spending $500. Basically to build your car out of my car, I'd be looking at adding another $1,500 to my purchase cost, so even at $4,500 I think if you really like the car, it's an OK buy. trouser chili fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Aug 3, 2012 |
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Aug 3, 2012 14:51
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toaster_pastry posted:and the seller still cries himself to sleep every night You can always buy it back. Might cry again when you see the odometer. I'll be posting a pic of it in two weeks or so as another milestone is reached. She's just completed a second trip to Canada and back as of yesterday.
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Aug 20, 2012 01:50
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CommieGIR posted:If you don't filter it right it will destroy your engine and injection pump Even with really good filtering, WVO will destroy the injection pump, end of sentence. Ok, maybe a little hyperbolic. WVO isn't completely terrible and the OM61X engines will ingest it mostly without problem. The problems come in when you ask it to stop ingesting WVO. Once the engine cools down to ambient temps, the WVO thickens and stops giving up what meager lubrication properties it has. Cold starts with congealed WVO in the injection pump kills the injection pump. It's also hard to start on because it congeals in the fuel filters, which means the injection pump and lift pump have to work even harder. Because of these problems the best way to run WVO is a system with a second heated tank for the WVO, a switch to start running the WVO about 10 minutes into your drive (depending upon ambient temps), and a mind to remember to switch off the WVO about 10 minutes before arriving at your destination. This is the only way I'd run WVO. Now, process the WVO into biodiesel, now you've got a useful product you can pour directly in the tank. It'll still gel up quicker than standard diesel, so watch your mix and remember to use additives, but it's easier on the whole system. Please note however that biodiesel tends to have very strong detergent properties. This sounds pretty awesome, and it's great for a newer vehicle, but for an older Merc that's been fed dinodiesel it's entire life it can present problems. Mostly it cleans the tanks and lines of the normal crud that would build up (dino diesel is nasty dirty stuff) and flushes it down into your fuel filters. Make sure to keep a few spares in your glove box cause they can clog up quick. So, now that you're processing WVO into bio, you've got a new problem. Glycerol. The process to make bio also creates Glycerol and eventually you're gonna have to deal with it. Glycerol is basically glycerin and methanol. You can distill the methanol out of it and reuse it in your bio reactor, but distillation isn't entirely a safe process. Stills can and do go boom and if you have no experience distilling, I don't recommend you cut your teeth on methanol. If you do distill, you still have the glycerin left to deal with. If it's pure enough, you can make soap from it, I don't know how much soap you need in your life, but be prepared to make a lot. You can in some cases dump it down the sanitary sewer, call your local waster water treatment facility to find out. You can load it into sawdust and make your own durable fire logs. If you have a wood burning stove or heater, you may really like this option. If there is any methanol left in the glycerin, expect a really hot fire. You can also just burn the undistilled glycerol, I recommend someplace outdoors and away from flammable structures. It's a liquid so you may want to load it into something like sawdust.
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Sep 24, 2012 15:29
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EvilMoFo posted:They are relatively common at picknpull, keeping them going is pretty reasonable. There are stupidly expensive components but I chalk that up to the price of german engineering. The heater coolant valve on my 77 300D failed, it is ~600 bucks and is a mixture of electricity, vacuum, and coolant; I bypassed it, instead of replacing it, with the thanks of a forum. I concur. My 240d is pretty simple and inexpensive to keep on the road. Recently replaced a giubo at $90 for the part. Little sore about that and I know I could have had it much cheaper had I planned ahead. Was pleasantly surprised replacing rear calipers at $50 a piece. The weekend prior I had done an Integra that ran $120 each. I've run up roughly 40k miles on it, so enough time/miles to shake out some repairs and maintenance. I get 28mpg out of it most the time, mixed driving. The only vacuum my 1982 240d manual transmission has is shutdown valve, locks and the recirculate/fresh air gate in the HVAC, I wouldn't want much more than that as the only one that works out of the three is the shutdown.
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Nov 14, 2012 19:26
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Anyone have any resources how to repair/diagnose the old Becker radios? My new-to-me 250c has no tunes. The original unit is marked Becker Europa Stereo and it appears to have an amp mounted on the passenger firewall under the dash. It didn't work when I looked at the car, so no surprises here, I'm just trying to make it work now. It did work once on a drive home from work, then never again. Normally this would make me think bad grounds, but I've tested and it's getting power and has a good ground as well.
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Nov 29, 2012 20:34
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BrokenKnucklez posted:I know this sounds silly, but is it getting a good clean signal? I would take the multimeter and see if its even sending a signal to the amp. Its worth a shot. Signal? Like power? The head unit is connected to the amp via a thick pigtail wire. The connector at the amp probably has 6 or 8 holes, I didn't remove it yet. There is no-way to remove the pigtail from the back of the head unit itself, it goes directly in where it is like soldered to the boards inside or something. I think the head unit is supposed to provide power to the amp, but I don't know. The power antenna is also connected to the head unit, except it never goes up. I'm guessing the antenna receives power from the head unit but I'm not sure how as it only has one connector and it's the standard type connector for car audio antennas.
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Nov 29, 2012 21:11
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BrokenKnucklez posted:I mean an audio signal. Sorry I should have been clearer. If I put 12v on the antenna wire should the antenna go up provided the motor works?
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Nov 30, 2012 05:16
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zundfolge posted:Are you sure it's a power antenna? I found this while trying to scare up a wiring diagram for the W114, and it looks like it has connections for power and ground in addition to the one for the aerial. If it only has a connection for the aerial, I'd bet that it's manual. Well if it's manual I've got no clue as to how to put it up.
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Nov 30, 2012 16:30
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Mr. Wiggles posted:Another thing is that for many of us who have a Mercedes (not that I've been part of that group very long, mind you), it's not the primary car. It's a special use vehicle, the Sunday driver, the car for date night, the car for long road trips, etc. It might be a daily driver, too, if that's you're thing. But there's usually something else in the garage that's sporty. I've got racing cars to keep me busy, for instance, and something I've noticed amongst people who keep very high end newer Mercedes cars also seem to have a thing for Porsches (something I'd like to get into myself). BMWs, on the other hand, and especially here, seem to do double or triple duty as the daily car/sport car/special use car, so consequently they get more attention paid to them by people who are only really concentrating on one vehicle. I've got a Mercedes as a primary car. Of course the W123 240d is basically a tractor with turn signals. Not much goes wrong with them, and when it does it's usually the same old story - plugged fuel filters. Anyway, not many folks here want to talk about W123. Seems most W123 owners lean kinda hippie and aren't interested in cars outside of their utilitarian value and AI is basically the opposite of that. Also, the W123 is kinda the opposite of AI. They're all pretty slow, the diesels are even worse and they're not exactly an engaging driving experience. Now my W114-chassis 250c is certainly more lively, but it may also be the only W114 on the forum.
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Mar 27, 2013 20:17
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Tai-Pan posted:
Before I bought my 250c, I was seriously eyeballing a 2-year old C63 AMG with 12k miles on it. Came with CPO warranty to 100,000k. Why shouldn't one buy AMG? Is it just maintenance costs or are they unreliable? This may seem obvious but I'm pretty oblivious to new cars anymore, and by "new" I mean anything made this millennium.
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Mar 27, 2013 20:20
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EnergizerFellow posted:
I'm getting there. I've owned more Mercedes than Internationals at this point.
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Mar 27, 2013 21:19
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wallaka posted:If you enjoy getting more than 15 mpg, don't get an AMG. They are pretty solid cars with a propensity to eat through tires like a tornado through a trailer park. I've had mine for a year and a half and 15,000 miles with just regular maintenance and an alternator, which wasn't too bad. Well it was just a toy. Something to take out when the weather is perfect, maybe three to five thousand miles a year.
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Mar 28, 2013 03:42
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FIRST TIME posted:I went to go schedule an appointment for my car today at my local German indie shop and there were like 4 almost identical W123s parked outside. I meant to ask about it but completely forgot. They were actually racing. It's hard to tell sometimes.
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Mar 28, 2013 16:22
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