BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts: This morning I decided to give her a good wash and wax (the W123, not Mrs. D). There were also two little jobs I wanted to do. I had noticed that the right-hand window washer only had one spray coming out of it. Whereas the left-hand one had two. So I thought one of the little nozzles must be blocked. But when I checked this morning, this is what I found! Left and right-hand nozzles on a W123 are different!. Never knew that! The other little job was the window crank handles in the back. In order to lower the window, you crank it anti-clockwise. In this position, the crank, due to the car’s movement and vibration, will eventually start coming down. Very annoying. This being a proper Mercedes, meaning you can take stuff apart and just put it back on without any problems or bits breaking, I popped off the crank. Job done. At long last. I don’t know why I left this for the last 25 years or so. I also decided to give the W123 a wash, wax and overall good clean job. I am not much of a detailer. But I do enjoy fiddling with my cars and do enjoy cleaning, polishing and waxing them. I just ran the W123 through the local automatic car wash and parked it back into my garage. It doesn’t really need polishing, not even claying, just a good wax job! So I cover up my other two cars, as I will be using my fancy rotating polishing machine, obviously! It has been a few years since I took that Car Detailing workshop. See earlier in this thread. I still find it very useful, as it came with a lot of documentation and suggestions for various products to be used. As per my usual mode of operation, I just bought it all! I find this to be an excellent wax. Well, apparently, according to the detailing community, it is not a wax. But the results are the same and it seems to last a long time. And it won’t make white stains on rubbers! Waxing goes incredibly fast with this machine. The W123 is a huge car, but it takes maybe 10 minutes to apply the wax by machine. Then, a few more minutes doing various nooks and crannies by hand. I leave it on for 30-45 minutes, and it still polishes out really easily. Quick look under the bonnet, could do with a bit of a clean up I have various products to get all the dirt and grime off. And then this stuff goes on quite liberally, basically drenches all the plastic bits. The metal surfaces have already been sprayed with something else. All the rubbers and the tires get done as well. I have different products for different parts. A lot of these products need applying with a soft sponge. So I buy these big packs for about one euro. Tear of the back and Bob’s your uncle. Brush away! I use this to polish the windows. It’s a bit of a PITA if I’m honest. But it does a very good job! Christmas Mince pie from the UK with my coffee!! When I was buffing out the wax, I noticed one scratch on the right rear panel of the W123. I could have used the machine to polish it, but on these relatively small and shallow scratches I find, doing it manually is a lot quicker and it does just as good a job. I have a few of these different polishing compounds. Job done! Good as new! The end result. Very rewarding as always! Tomorrow best friend and spanner mate is coming for a day of fiddling with our cars. We are going to replace the brake booster on my Spider. Peter will bring his Daimler, which needs some work on both front windows. Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
