Recently I had noticed the 560SEC running hotter than usual in traffic. This was during winter when it was quite cold outside. I suspected that the original viscous fan coupling was starting to fail. I was able to spin the fan quite easily just after I turned off the engine while it was hot. Back in 2020, I had a similar issue on...
The August night drive was a repeat of the southwest loop we did last year. On the night of the drive, the weather was pretty bad, so we only had a few people come on that drive. Since the route was really good, I put it on the schedule again for this year. After a cold winter, the day of the drive was unseasonably...
The show at Eastern Creek has long been a fixture in the classic car scene in Sydney. It is a great location for a big car event, with the track, grandstand and plenty of places to display the cars. I’ve been going for many years, and have always enjoyed the day. Displaying a car is worth it if you plan to go. Entry...
My 1981 Mercedes 240D still has the original Becker Europa 596 Radio. This is one of the last of the analogue radios before the cars moved to the digital radio with the Becker Grand prix 612. The main issue with the Becker is that it does not stay in tune. I’m constantly having to adjust it to stay on an FM station. In addition,...
I used to be a regular attendee at the St Ives Auto Brunch event. However, I had not been since September of last year. There are a few reasons for that. I’ve had quite a lot of work travel in the first half of this year, and due to the torrential rain in Sydney earlier this year, the event has been rained out quite...
Ever since we started the night drives in 2020, I’ve wanted to do a route going north from Wisemans Ferry. The issue was the poor road surface along Wisemans Ferry Road as it goes parallel with the Lower Hawkesbury. Some of the potholes were big enough to swallow up a W201. Given the lack of lighting it wasn’t really a suitable place for a...
Like all car clubs, MBCNSW has a lot of interesting cars that rarely get out to club events. The goal of the Chrome Bumper day was to try and entice a few of them out. The thinking was that an informal event that was fairly centrally located may be attractive for somebody who rarely takes out their older car. The event was held...
Recently the odometer stopped working on my 1987 560SEL, just before the car hit 340,000km. This is a pretty common problem on the W126. I had to repair both my old 300SE and my 560SEC. The issue is the small gears that turn the odometer. They are made of a very soft plastic and after 30+ years, the teeth break off. This repair is...
The June MBCNSW night drive brought back a route that we last used in October 2021. It was held one week later than normal since I was overseas last week. That was probably good from a weather point of view, as it apparently poured all week. Last night was somewhat better, with only scattered showers. The more inner city night drives can be...
For the last couple of days I have been driving the Chevy Malibu as my rental car. I last rented a Chevy Malibu back in 2018 and reviewed it. The car hasn’t fundamentally changed since 2018, but has gone through a facelift and some minor updates. It is scheduled to go out of production in November. The Malibu in its various generations has...
Last night was the MBCNSW May night drive. This drive was a little different to what we normally do. Instead of a longer drive on semi-rural twisty roads, this one was shorter and far closer to the city. The genesis of this drive came from remembering how peaceful it was up at North Head in the evening. The views back to the city and...
This morning I woke up early and so decided to head to a cars and coffee event. I hadn’t been to one in a while, and it looked like a lovely Autumn day in Sydney. The event on this weekend was the one in Centennial Park. Last time I attended this one was back in mid 2022. This event has moved around a...
I just got my 240D back from having the motor mounts changed. When I purchased the 240D, the motor mounts were one of the few obvious things that needed attending to on the car. They looked pretty bad and the engine was shaking at idle. On a W123 or W126, normally I would go with the Lemforder motor mounts, which are excellent. I...
The under bonnet insulation was starting to reach the end of its use by date. Bits of it in the air filter were a pretty good indicator of this. I’m not sure how long it had been on, but it pre dated my ownership of the car. Looking more carefully, I could see the main insulation mat, which was falling apart. However, I could...
The under bonnet insulation on my W123 240D had started to crumble on the edges. While it had only just started happening, it also appeared that the car didn’t have a proper insulation mat. I’m not sure if it was an older aftermarket option, or something cut to size but it looked like some thin light coloured foam. Since I was doing this...
Like a lot of modern cars, the S211 E350 my wife drives has a ‘shark fin’ antenna on the roof. There are generally maintenance free, in contrast with telescopic power antennas. However, in our case, when the antenna was broken after hitting a garage door, the fix was not obvious. The proper fix would be to replace the antenna with a new Mercedes-Benz unit. ...
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