I’m taking my 560SEC on a long road trip in a couple of weeks. I’ve never really been especially happy with the sound from the speakers, particularly from midrange tones. Before I took the car on a long trip, I wanted to upgrade the speakers. I am also doing a similar project on my 300TE. On that car, one of the front speakers is...
In this series I am refurbishing my W124 instrument cluster. In the first part, I removed the cluster and lubricated the speedo cable. For the second part, I repaired the W124 outside temperature display. Now I am focused on my instrument cluster which is afflicted with the dreaded white spot disease. While I was in the UK for work in January, I purchased a...
In this series I am refurbishing my W124 instrument cluster. In the last part, I removed the cluster and lubricated the speedo cable. For this part, I am repairing the W124 outside temperature display. The main problem with these displays is that when exposed to too much hot sun, the LCD panel ‘bleeds’. Over time, this makes it increasingly illegible, not to be mention...
Ever since I bought my W124, there have been a couple of things about my instrument cluster I was not very happy with. It had the dreaded ‘white spot’ disease. Not just on the instrument cluster surround, but the inside of the glass too. The outside temperature LCD was all cloudy and difficult to read. The speedometer needle jumped around at low speed. I...
I’m about to take my 560SEC on a road trip. I’ve been making sure I had appropriate spares for this road trip, especially things that would he hard to get by the side of the road. One thing on my list was some spare ZH-M. ZH-M is the hydraulic fluid used in the self-levelling rear suspension. Since I was ordering ZH-M I...
Today was the annual Sydney German car show. Due to work travel and the pandemic, the last one of these I attended was back in 2018. It seems quite a while ago now. This is always a really good event and as usual it was very well organized. The show is held in Gough Whitlam park in Earlwood, which is good central location. ...
After weeks of warm sunny weather, a cold and wet change rolled into Sydney to perfectly align with our October night drive. This cut numbers drastically, and we ended up with three cars. The weather was better for the actual drive, and we just had occasional light showers. The genesis for this route came from a motorcycle app designed to find good roads...
Over the last few months, the blinkers have been playing up on my 450SLC. It started out when the car was first started up, the blinkers would flash very fast. After a while, I guess the flasher unit warmed up and they went back to their normal rate. Over time, this took longer and longer to happen, until they stopped flashing at...
In the first part of this series, I installed the 123 ignition distributor and got the car running. This part focuses on test driving the car and fine tuning the install. I should note that the 123 ignition distributor has nothing to do with the W123 Mercedes. A couple of people assumed I was fitting a distributor from a W123. The 123...
The September 2023 night drive was a bit closer to the city than the last one. We started at Mt Colah and finished in Brookvale. Due to some rain earlier in the week, and it being school holidays, we only had three cars on the drive, but that made it very easy to keep the group together. I took my 560SEL, and...
A couple of weeks ago, I posted an update about my W111 running issues. A reader who is an expert in these cars suggested I fit a 123 ignition distributor. His feedback was that even if it doesn’t solve my current running problem, it is a very worthwhile upgrade. My mechanic also thought the issues were probably ignition related. Based...
Today was the annual ACT German Car show. I always enjoy this show and this year was no different. The show is held at Queanbeyan Park, which is a great spot with plenty of shade. As with the last couple of years, I went down to Canberra for the weekend. Its a much better way to enjoy the show than getting up early and...
The 2023 British car show was finally on in Sydney, the first since 2019. The 2020 and 2021 shows were lost to Covid and the 2022 show to wet fields. The 2023 show was still at the Kings School in Parramatta, but not on the same day as the school fete like normal. It felt like a summer day today, with temperatures of around...
I’ve known the automatic transmission in my 560SEC was weak for a few years now. It was exhibiting a lot of the symptoms of wear that these 722.3 transmissions do when they are wearing. When it was cold, there was a lot of resistance in reverse. It would also occasionally bang into a lower gear or shift erratically. Once it warmed up, it...
My 250SE has been suffering from poor running issues for almost two years now. It started not long after I got the car back from being repaired from the impact with the Kangaroo. Despite a lot of work to try and rectify these issues, they are still plaguing the car. The challenge is that these are intermittent problems, and so hard to diagnose. I...
Today was the Monthly St Ives Auto Brunch cars and coffee event. The event is held in St Ives showground. Since I last attended, they have moved from being spread over some of the side roads and fields to the main showground. This is a huge improvement. The main showground is plenty big enough for all the cars that want to attend,...
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