The MBCNSW held a tech day at a dyno equipped performance shop today. I was keen to attend as I wanted to understand how much power my ECE 560SEC is making. Geting dyno time independently can be expensive, but through the club day it was very affordable. The tech day was held at SR Performance at Wolli Creek. On the Dyno, the following cars...
I’ve had two BMW E39 front seats in the garage for a couple of years. My brother wrote off his 1999 BMW 523i a couple of years back. He was originally going to do something with the seats, but since moved interstate. I’ve always thought that one of them would make a great garage chair. The main downside is they are immensely heavy. ...
A couple of weeks ago I installed the Classic Auto Sound Becker Tribute Radio in my 250SE. I’m really happy with it, it worked really well on my recent drive down to Canberra. One of the only things I thought could have been improved on the radio was the buttons were unlabeled. The real radios had LMKUU buttons. Classic Auto Sound, who build these...
It was just announced that the NSW 60 day logbook ‘trial’ has been made permanent. This is great news as its a really good system. The two minor drawbacks – the amount of paperwork and the size of the plates. The plates are tiny and really ugly. They are so small that they don’t line up with the mounting holes of nearly any car. ...
The Retrosound Model 2 radio in my Citroen DS has been playing up. It would randomly adjust the volume on its own, mostly down. The practical effect of this was not being able to listen to the radio. A while back I removed the face of the radio to take a look and the wire from the volume knob to the radio looked chafed. ...
This weekend I traveled to Canberra for 2019 ACT German Car Show. I’ve been to this show a few times before (2013, 2015, 2017), but this is the first time I have formally entered a car. In prior years I have driven down on the day and arrived around 11ish to see the show for an hour or so. This year I decided...
Yesterday I attended the 2019 British Car Show at the Kings School. This is still, in my opinion, the premier car show in Sydney each year. It was a lovely day, with summer like weather and a big turn out of cars. I didn’t display a car this year. Last year, I displayed my E-Type. However, the Jaguars now come in a different...
One of the things I noticed when I first changed the oil on my 560SEC was the dent in the lower oil pan. Presumably it hit a curb or rock at some point. It was also leaking. the dent was likely too small to interfere with the oil pump, or oil pickup but I wanted to be sure. The M117 lower oil pan...
Today I completed the install of the Classic Auto Sound Becker Tribute. In the first part, I removed the old Clarion, and installed the the Retrosound wiring harness. I also tested the radio and it was working fine. The new radio looks great and is a huge improvement over the Clarion CD player. Installation Step 4: Convert the Becker Tribute radio to DIN At...
I have been wanting to change the radio in the 250SE since I have owned the car. It was a basic Clarion unit that looked totally out of place. The dashboard in my car has been cut to DIN size, meaning going back to the original Becker wasn’t really an option. Unfortunately many W111’s had their dashboards cut up in the 70s...
I installed a double four post hoist late last year. Overall, I have been happy with the hoist. It is a very tight fit in my space, but it is worth being able to store cars more effectively. It also allows me to rent out a couple of spots to help cover my costs. The major problem I have is oil drippage from the...
The Mercedes-Benz E Class wagon is not particularly common. It would appear that most buyers opted for the ML/GLE model. Their loss as I believe the S211 is the far better car, unless you want to tow. This makes spare parts a bit more tricky, when those parts are not shared with the sedan. In this case, the tail light lens was broken...
A common feature of Mercedes cars from the mid 70s through the mid 2000s is the self-leveling rear suspension. This system is standard on the wagons, but was commonly specified on the higher end sedans too. Mercedes-Benz Australia was particularly keen on the system fitting it to coupes and even mid size saloons. The system ensures that even with a heavy load in the...
A few months ago I replaced the under bonnet insulation pad on my 560SEC. This job also needed doing on the 300SE. I purchased both pads at the same time, and finally got a chance to do the second one today. Note, if you’re looking for more information on forums, American sites will refer to this as a hood pad. There are youtube...
The rental car I had for my recent trip to Texas was a 2017 Ford Fusion Hybrid. Like with my recent Challenger rental, I had the opportunity to choose any car in a certain section. Unlike the last choice, the choices were not nearly as appetizing. I had only rented an intermediate class car, so most of what was available was particularly unpleasant looking...
The final stop for my North Texas car museum road trip was the Clifton Classic Chassis Auto Museum. I managed to get to the Museum at just after 4PM, giving me just under an hour to check it out. You wouldn’t want any less time – there are about 30 cars as well as an interesting art collection. The art collection has objects...
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