In the workshop, I saw a Mercedes-Benz SL with a V12 that needed plenty of work.
BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
Some small jobs on several cars last week.
Alfa Romeo Spider
It has been plagued with noisy, creaky sounds from both doors. You have seen me doing several jobs to get that fixed. Inside the door, notably the window guides were giving trouble. But all of that is fixed, but some creaks persisted.
I am pretty sure they come from these door mounts. When I put vaseline, or grease, on it, it’s gone. Maybe for 10-20 minutes, and it starts again.
I have tried to adjust them in slightly different positions, but nothing helps. I spoke to my Alfa Specialist, Goos, and he suggested replacing them right away.
They are held in place with two bolts, easy enough. I checked the old ones for wear and tear. They certainly were a bit worn, and the new ones felt more flexible too.
I haven’t test-driven the Spider since, but I am hopeful this problem has been fixed.
Next, the Mercedes W123
I am not exactly sure, but I think it must have been at least 100K since the oil in both the gearbox and the rear differential was changed. Also, the differential has some leakage. Nothing to worry about yet. But I thought I wanted to hear the opinion of Cor, my W123 expert.
Also, changing oil on the gearbox and the diff is just a pain without a lift. It can be done, but it is so much easier and quicker on a lift. So I had made an appointment with Cor.
Draining the diff.
Cor said not to worry about the slight oil seepage. He says my W123 probably has one of the least oil seepages he has seen for a long time!
Whereas the diff oil was changed in under five minutes, we ran into a bit of a problem with the gearbox.
It seems one of the exhaust brackets was installed incorrectly. It meant touching the drain plug. We took the bracket off, but it appeared the thread of the drain plug was somewhat damaged. Cor managed to fix the thread. But what should have been another 5-minute job became a 45-minute job. Very glad I had the car on the lift at Cor.
Bracket correctly installed
As always, before draining the oil from a differential or gearbox, open the filler plug first!! You don’t want to be draining the oil, only to find out you can’t get the new oil in.
On both the diff and the gearbox, the oil looked, felt and smelled perfectly fine. You can’t conclude too much from that. But another 100K on these old oils would have been fine, most likely. I know W123 owners who have never changed the oil in their diff/gearbox.
Although Cor finished the jobs on my W123 in under an hour, I spent about 3 hours with him. He always has some interesting projects going on and is happy talking about them.
Cor had an SL with a V12 that needed plenty of work. He was in the process of replacing the wiring looms on both sides. Many cars from the late 90s suffer from very poor wiring and Mercedes are no different. Due to various regulations, the type of plastic insulation used on electrical wires and loom was changed. It means that after 20-30 years, the insulation becomes brittle and in some cases more or less dissolves by itself.
Look at this wire loom Cor took out of this Mercedes.
Cor was working on another SL project. The owner popped in whilst I was there and the three of us spent a long time looking at this car. He needed some valve tappets replaced. Not a particularly difficult job. But finding new ones is a problem. Cor had a couple of new ones, but not enough. Mercedes doesn’t stock them anymore. So that is going to take a lot of calling and mailing to find them.
When Cor finally backed my W123 out of the lift, I noticed the right rear reverse light wasn’t working. So when I got home, I replaced the bulb.
Whereas replacing light bulbs on modern cars can be a major job, it is still very easy on the W123.
You just undo these two knobs on the back of the rear light unit inside the trunk.
And out it comes
Remember these? Every new car would be delivered with a set like this. One of each light bulb and fuses as used on your car. Not sure they still do. This is still an original Mercedes-Benz box. Over the years, I have used some of the lights/fuses inside it. I just buy new ones and put them in this nifty little box!
Put a new bulb in, voila. Everything working again, all in under two minutes and not a spanner in sight! That’s how it should work when replacing a light bulb on a car.
I decided to mop my garage floor as well. It’s quite a job, but I don’t mind doing it.
Also gave the W123 a quick wash and vacuumed and dusted the interior.
I little while ago, I bought this special brush. Well, when I say I bought, I should have said “I invested”. I can’t disclose how much I paid for this (Mrs. D sometimes reads these posts, but it was an obscene amount of money). This is a real detailing brush. You will need to take out a mortgage to afford one. Up to this point in my life, I never saw the need to shell out this sort of money for what is obviously just a brush.
I can now confirm, looking back at decades of cleaning my cars, I should have bought one of these brushes many, many years ago.
All nice and shiny!
Not a speck of dust left, after me and my fancy brush were done!!
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