Yesterday I did my first proper drive in my 1981 Mercedes 240D. More information about the car can be found here. My overall impression is that the people who talk about the performance of the 240D automatic on the internet have clearly never driven one. I’m used to driving fairly powerful cars like my 220KW 560SEC but I didn’t find the 240D especially slow...
The April 2024 night drive was a repeat of a route we last did two years ago. On that night, I tried two different cars before withdrawing, both of them having brake issues. In addition, recent bad weather kept the numbers down. This month was a much better experience all around. The drive was dubbed the ‘Bridge to Bridge’ drive. Basically we would take...
With the 240D now registered and in the garage, there were a few simple jobs to undertake. The first was a set of floor mats. The original carpets were in such nice shape I wanted to protect them. I though the ideal floor mats for the 240D are the dealer fitted thick rubber mats from that era. Its likely what the car had...
Sometimes you don’t go looking for classic cars – they find you. While I have always wanted to try a W123 diesel, I wasn’t specifically looking for one. However, when I saw this 1981 Mercedes-Benz 240D, I thought it was something special. I was able to secure it for what I thought was a very good price. The main thing that appealed...
Late last year the power window on my 1987 Mercedes 560SEL stuck in the down position. I lowered the window to exit a parking station and the window would not go back up. The first test I did was to check the switch. This would have been the easiest and simplest repair. It is very easy to swap the plug on the front and...
A few months ago, I started replacing the blower on my W124. I figured this would be a simple job and I would be back up and running a few days later. Little did I know that that the car would be off the road for months. In part one, I removed the old W124 blower motor. I was not able to install my...
I’m back in the USA for an annual conference I attend. I normally have a free day before it starts, to get acclimatized to the time zone and to allow a buffer for flight delays. The conference is in Las Vegas, which has become really expensive. I’m not all that interested in spending money on overpriced entertainment, or gambling when I could...
I just got my 450SLC back from having the timing chain, tensioner, camshaft oiler tubes and valve stem seals replaced. These are all jobs that any owner of a Mercedes V8 of this era will need to undertake at some point. The primary driver behind this was the need to replace the valve stem seals. A couple of my sparkplugs, #1 in particular, would...
I’ve wanted to visit the Fox Collection in Melbourne for over 10 years. I used to have a job where I would commute to Melbourne twice a month but the opening hours never lined up with when I was there. This weekend I am traveling through Melbourne and happened to have the Saturday morning fee. I went along for the morning with my...
One of my favourite day trip drive near Sydney is the Oberon to Goulburn Drive. I’ve done this drive in both directions and its a great mix of different roads, plus limited traffic. I even incorporated this road in my recent trip to Melborne. I had also seen that the parallel road that goes south out of Bathurst was also paved in the last...
This month’s night drive was a bit different. Instead of meeting up and doing a drive for 60-90 minutes, we did a very short drive and then went to check out the club library. I’ve been a member of the Mercedes Club for between 10 and 15 years. I knew the club had a library, and I heard it was pretty good, but I...
The choice of radio for my 1965 Mercedes 250SE Cabriolet was not an easy one. I don’t know what radio the car had in it’s early years. It is a diplomat delivery car, that was picked up from the factory in Stuttgart. The original radio would have either been a slimline model, or perhaps a radio delete plate. At some point, some butcher...
My 250SE Cabriolet had a feature I was not aware of. Underneath the injection pump is an oil/coolant heat exchanger. This was also an option on late 230SLs. Instead of a separate cooler that the M130 engined cars have, the heat exchanger helps warm up the oil when the engine is cool and cool it down when the engine is hot. There...
On my trip to Victoria last last year, the alternator on my 560SEC packed in. I was able to limp the car home by swapping batteries with a friend in another W126. I also purchased another battery on the road. When I arrived back in Sydney, it was this new battery that was still in the car. I was just going to leave that...
Today I went to a cars and coffee event at Gough Whitlam Park. It was organized by Enthusiast Insurance. I had been invited by a friend, and assumed it was a regular cars and coffee event that they were sponsoring. I think it was more an event for their customers. I’m not an Enthusiast customer, but it didn’t seem to matter a...
I recently drove down to Canberra in my 1965 250SE. This was the first time I had taken the car on a longish trip in a couple of years. The main reason for that was the running issue had been experiencing with the car over the last few years. I finally solved this issue last year by fitting a new electronic distributor. On the...
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