Garage Equilibrium upset - Mercedes W124 acquisition

Hello and welcome back to another installment of Gunchsta rambling and occasional wrenching.

The subject of this particular thread is my most recent impulsive purchase, this 1989 Mercedes Benz 260E sedan. 

Obligatory Craigslist screenshot for your viewing pleasure. 

Why a Mercedes? Why the w124 specifically? Don't kid yourself, this was not some long journey for this specific car. This was the product of manic Craigslist searching in a less-than-ideal market. Classic car pricing is pretty high, and my passion for automotive knowledge is limited (perhaps aided because I have to broaden my parameters) by a challenge-level budget. 

Anyway, I kept this tab open on my browser for about 3 days, and on Saturday morning I finally succumbed to the pressure and went to look at the car. My expectations were high; I've had high mileage German cars before, including another Mercedes, and they've all been moderately exquisite despite some of the typical German shortcomings. 

Expectations were met. The car drove great, had few rattles or creaks, stopped good and was well maintained throughout it's life, but I still had reservations. My side of the garage was empty and with winter coming I would be able to finally park my daily driver out of the snow. 

Boring. 

So, a deal was struck and I now own this lovely W124 chassis Mercedes. I'm creating this thread to share my experience with the car, and hopefully serve as a bit of a motivator to get out and do some work here and there.  

Cool find and thanks for sharing. Keep us posted on the progress. 

For the sake of rationalization here are some "positive" bullet points I considered when buying this car: 

• Collector status, meaning I could insure it through Hagerty and pay a reasonable amount of money for appropriate coverage 
• Unique among my peers yet also ubiquitous - According to google Mercedes made 2,500,000 of these cars in all the variants. This is good news for parts availability and knowledge base
• A different challenge than previous hobby cars - German, Fuel injected, etc etc. This is a much more complex car than I've had recently and will allow my to stretch my mechanical skills and comfort level 
• Inexpensive. If all else fails this isn't a major investment. 
• Very clean, with well documented maintenance. Buying any vehicle with over 200,000 miles is a gamble, having good service records helps the odds. The maintenance records aren't perfect, but it does look like most service was performed regularly and as needed. Brake fluid flushes, trans flushes, diff service, etc. 
• European. I've always admired the quality and quirkiness of European cars. I think it's time to tackle one again and prove to myself I'm capable of the more complicated maintenance. 
• Safe. I have a wife and small child and really like to use my classic vehicles, including small trips with the family. This car has ABS, air bags, and 4 wheel disc brakes. Not to mention it drives like a tank - it feels very sturdy. I feel better carting the family around in this than the 65 Mercury with it's 4 wheel drum brakes. 
• Inline 6. I love a good V8, but it's also very hard to argue with a straight 6. Great balance and sound. 
• Bluetooth stereo. Not something I normally consider with a hobby car purchase, but this already has a decent bluetooth headunit in it that functions well.

Something I learned after purchase that has already brought me quite a bit of reading enjoyment is that this car runs on the CIS fuel injection that I've previously expressed a masochistic desire to know about. I believe this particular car utilizes the KE-jetronic variant by Bosch which is described as electro-mechanical fuel injection. That sounds terrifying but from what I've learned so far it's essentially mechanical fuel injection with an ECU to fine tune the mixture. Allegedly it will continue to run even if the ECU is dead. 

This system is again somewhat unique in my peer group, but overall is quite ubiquitous. VW used it, Mercedes, Audi, and many others. I believe it's quite robust and reliable just gets a bad name from inexperienced users. 

So, that's pretty much the acquisition and rationalization part of the story.

TLDR; Gunchsta tries his hand a cheap vintage European car. What could possibly go wrong?! 

So, since everyone loves pictures let's add some shall we? 

For posterity here's the odometer reading upon leaving the sellers driveway 213,695

And here's a picture of my 2 week stint daily driving it to work after I bought it. It's almost a shame not to drive it in winter because the yellow fogs around the headlights and the mono-wiper are just super cool. 

With that in mind, some impressions from the first 2 weeks. 

• Seems to prefer 93 octane to 91. Had some sputtering issues on 91 that were minimized with 93. Further inquiry is needed
• Tires are absolute junk. Old, dry rotted, not suited for daily driving. This will be resolved shortly 
• Visibility is really good. You sit high in the cabin and visibility is excellent. The vertical passenger side view mirror is way cool. Different shape and profile than the drivers side in an effort to make it more functional. Super euro geek moment with that one
• Mono wiper is also extremely good. Covers the vast majority of the windshield and the cam/elliptical it runs on makes it also go up and down which is comical.
• Slow, it feels very slow unless you really romp on it. May be a product of CIS, may just be a different learning curve for the driver. 
• It drives very heavy, firm, solid and dense. It feels really stable and safe, but it isn't wallowy like some of my American boats. 
• Really awesome turning radius 

And here's a short list of problems I'd like to address in no particular order

1. Tires are junk
2. No license plate lights
3. Needs a new serpentine belt
4. Missing 2 of the 4 rubber jack points 
5. front 2 external jack points in the rockers are rusty. Replacement panels exist, I would like to replace these and re-undercoat the rockers. 
6. Stance - needs to sit lower. I don't need to be a reflector collector but it's gotta be lower
7. Oil pan replacement. Supposedly the drain plug is stripped or otherwise inoperable. It's currently in the pan and the oil has been changed via fluid extractor through the dipstick tube. I have no issue continuing to do this, but it might be nice to replace the pan as well. This is a big maybe repair. 
8. Sunroof inoperable. Also a huge maybe repair, previous owner told me it came off the track once and he had a hell of a time wrestling it back into place. I'd love to have a functioning sunroof, but this is very low on the list of needs
9. Passenger turn signal lens is zip tied on. Looks fine externally but I guess some of the clips are broken on the housing. More inquiry is needed, likely just buy a replacement lens. 
10. Power antenna only functions with radio, not switch on the dash. PO said the stereo wiring was 'sketchy' so this will likely be a problem left unsolved (and unresearched even). 

After that I'd really like to just drive it and enjoy it, addressing whatever failures present themselves.  

OOOoooo I love this, super clean for the price as well.

As an experienced KE-jet guy, especially for Mercedes, KE-jet sucks once the hard to find stuff starts breaking. I just got rid of it as there are plug and play ways to convert it to real EFI.

I might have some spare front suspension oem upgrades for this car in a plastic bin. And some spare M103 ke-jet stuff.

In reply to yupididit :

This why I love GRM and a selfish reason I posted the thread - I knew that there would be some Ke-jet people nearby :) 

I've seen a couple plug and play EFI conversions, but for now everything seems to function nicely so I see no reason to change it. Will probably be asking you dumb questions when things start failing 

They make a really good daily driver

mine is perfectly happy on 91 but around here the pumps are 87/89/93 so it gets 93. 
 

10. check the operation of the aerial. I think the switch allows it to operate when the radio is on or turns it off. It doesn't raise and lower the aerial itself.

In reply to chandler :

Dang, that thing looks great! The temptation to daily it is still there, in my experience the German cars last a little better (ie don't immediately rust) through the Midwest winters than a lot of other stuff. 

I currently have a good economical daily (2014 Hyundai Accent) so I don't really feel the need to daily this one, but the thought of having one car is very appealing. Maybe next summer I'll end up with just the Mercedes. 

Per the antenna- it seems to function fine, but it only raises or lowers via the radio being turned on or off, not with the switch. Are you saying that if I put the switch in the 'down' or 'off' position the antenna wouldn't raise even with the radio on? I'll have to look into that.

Let's check a couple items off of the to-do list shall we?

Serpentine belt failures can really ruin your day, so lets address that. Pelican parts actually has some nice how-to videos for these cars so armed with that knowledge I dug in while the kiddo napped. 

Shroud and clutch fan need to come off in order to access the belt routing and tensioner. Removal of the clutch fan requires MB specific tool 1989.69.420 OR a bent piece of 1/4-20 threaded rod. Fan shroud is held on with some very clever, very german clips you slide up. With the shroud disconnected from the radiator you have just enough room to get your 8mm allen key in the nose of the fan, and your MB tool in the back of the water pump to hold it from spinning while you loosen the fan. 

Here we are with the shroud removed and 1/4-20 bent rod water pump holder in place. There's a hole in the pulley mounting surface of the water pump that matches what I would describe as a keyway? in the pump casting that your 90deg bent rod sits in and holds the pump pulley from spinning. A fairly clever solution overall. 

After fussing with incorrect belt routing for a while I finally got it correct and the new belt slid right on. Shiny! 

Fan and shroud back in place, MB tool removed. All completed before the kiddo woke up from her nap. 

Quick test drive and no belt squeal or catastrophic self-removal of the belt so I'll call this one complete. 

License plate light diagnosis story: 

I'm ... how to put this ... barely competent at wiring. It's never been a strong suit of mine but I'm trying to get better at it. That said, a vintage German car should give me ample opportunities to learn. One such instance is the license plate lights.

When I got the car they didn't work. I asked the PO about this and he said he "never looked into it", which was a funny statement coming from an otherwise very meticulous guy. Fine, maybe it wasn't a priority for him, or perhaps the problem was deeper than burnt out bulbs. 

Some probing with the test light/multi-meter found 12v to each one of the light sockets, so bulbs were ordered. Installed and nothing, not surprising really the bulbs in there didn't look bad. So, trunk was closed and problem ignored for the rest of the week.

I went out to the garage one evening after putting the car "away" for winter and just did some general garage organization and decided to look at the license plate lights again. Seemingly had power, but some further investigation it seems like I didn't have any ground. Common enough issue, and I'm no stranger to the sentiment of checking and cleaning grounds especially on old or rusty cars. 

So, I trace the grounds back to the trunk where there's a junction of about 7 brown ground wires from various trunk components on 2 ring terminals. No wires appear loose at the terminals, and the body isn't rusty where the ground is attached. I disconnect it, sand the paint down, and reconnect it anyway. Presto! License plate lights! 

I close the trunk lid and start cleaning up my tools feeling good about myself. Before I go in I flip the lights back on to bask in the glory of a well-lit license plate. Ooops, lights no longer work. Checked my voltage at the sockets again and now it seems like I have power on the ground side of the socket. That doesn't make much sense, but again I'm borderline incompetant at wiring. I start googling and trying to find a wiring diagram, maybe I'm probing the wrong side of the socket, what do I know. 

I find a few posts about how the wires for these lights like to break up by the hinge where they flex throughout the years. I turn the headlights back on, and grab the harness by the hinge and flex it around, lo and behold the license plate light flickers. So, we must have some broken wires there. Now, this is all loomed up very nicely, tucked into a hollow part of the hinge and behind the carpeting of the trunk. Interestingly enough it's the crinkle loom you see everywhere, but Mercedes has the audacity to use a fully closed loom, not the split style you get at the parts store. So after some careful cutting with a razor blade to not damage the wires hiding inside, the loom is split and I these 3 wires jump out at me:

That'll do it! So, soldered, heat shrinked, and re-loomed and we have license plate lights! And as an added bonus we now have an interior trunk light I didn't even know was there.

This was a fun, free fix, and is something I'm proud I bothered to fix. I know 5 years ago me would have laughed it off as just another example of why German cars are crappy and never taken the time to figure it out.

I have a leg from a yard sign holder specifically for that job. I like working on these because the labor solutions are a little elegant; once you figure out what's going on.

Oddly enough a couple days after I get the car a friend of mine texts me this picture and says "want me to pick these up for you?"

The local U-pull junkyard had a set of really decent condition AMG 17" wheels! I venmo'd him $210 and he picked these up for me. 17x7.5 and 17x8.5 Genuine Mercedes. 

This is especially awesome because the factory 15" wheels had junk tires that were so bad I almost didn't want to drive the car, and I happened to have a decent set of 17" tires in the basement that would be perfectly sufficient for these. 

After I completed the serpentine belt I decided to try these on - I was pretty sure they were going to fit but if they didn't I had 30 days and I could return them to the Junkyard if need be.

Woo! Note the distinct lack of jack-biscuit necessitating a chunk of plywood. This is not what Mercedes intended.

So, I loaded up 8 wheels and 4 tires into the Accent and dropped them off at the local Discount tire for mounting/balancing swaparoonie. 

Probably same size and offsets as mine, I used Vogtland springs and KYB shocks and it's been 40,000 miles

In reply to chandler :

This car has newer Bilstien shocks and I'm planning on cutting a couple coils and fine-tuning with spring pads. I actually got the spring compressor on sale from Pelican parts last week now I just need to find the right motivation to get out there and do it, which may not be for a while yet as we have snow and holidays coming up here in Minnesota. 

D

Donk status. This thing definitely needs to come down.  I swear it looks a little better than this normally, I just finished putting all the wheels on and I don't think the suspension had settled all the way. 

Regardless, it drives like a new car with tires that aren't a bazillion years old and weather checked. Huge improvement, and I really like the way the wheels look. 

Which brings us to present day. The car is in my garage under a car cover (that came with it and fits quite nicely) waiting for spring.

Or, waiting for me to want to add to this thread and get out there and cut those springs! It seems like a pretty straight forward job with minimal disassembly when using the correct spring compressors, so that's the route I'm going to take. There's a very small part of me that's ashamed to cut springs on such a nice car, but the minimal-investment part of my brain is outweighing the shame part currently. 

Plus, new springs are available, as are lowering springs. So really an experiment with minimal risk. I've read a few other threads online of people cutting coils with no issue. These aren't a Macpherson strut setup so I'm sure it'll be fine. I've cut coils on plenty of other cars and trucks and been satisfied. 

I would like it to come down about 2-1/2" - this would put the tires right about at the fenders with minimal gap. It seems Mercedes uses some rubber isolators on the springs, and they make 3 sizes of them that can vary the ride height. So I plan on cutting however many coils it looks like will get me down about 2", and fine tuning the rest with those spring pads. 

Got my jack point biscuits installed. Oem Mercedes because they were $10 each on pelican parts. I love stupid little stuff like this. 
 

Ordered two OEM oil filters too. They will probably last me my full ownership of the car 😂

add a little persuasion and the expanding thing in the center goes in nicely 

sweet! 
 

Now I can properly jack up the car. I feel so sophisticated 

Fantastic. What I know about Mercedes you could fit on the head of a pin, but the W201 and W124 always seemed right to me. Thanks for bringing us along.

My uncle had one of these when they were new, in this exact color (Not exact spec, European E200 auto, slow as molasses.)

I do believe this is one of the colors that REALLY suit the car.

In reply to DarkMonohue :

Thanks for reading! My Mercedes knowledge is also quite minimal. I'm hoping to expand that knowledge with this one, but it would be nice if that expansion came at a leisurely pace versus in the form of some catastrophic failure. Time will tell!

Lower the suspension and add the European headlights and this thing will be PERFECT