Classic Jalopy Blog

W126 A/C almost blowing cold 1

W126 A/C almost blowing cold

My fight with the W126 Air Conditioning system is almost over.   When I purchased the car, the A/C worked rather well.   After the water pump gave out, it looks like it shorted out the compressor clutch.   Changing out the clutch is not much different to changing out the whole compressor, so I sourced a new compressor and receiver/drier.   This was rather irritating as working...

Citroen DS front end wiring – part 2 6

Citroen DS front end wiring – part 2

My efforts in getting the wiring right at the front of the DS continue to disappoint.   This time, I made a harness to test multiple wires at the same time. This helped somewhat, but I think there may be something not hooked up right at the headlights.   As my car has been fitted with relays, the headlights should both come on at the same...

Citroen DS Mirrors 0

Citroen DS Mirrors

One of the first and easiest jobs after the repaint was to fit the Citroen DS Mirrors.  Before the repaint I was continually having the mirrors adjust themselves at speeds above 80km/h.  That is, they would slowly fold inwards until they were touching the car.   I was also disappointed with the quality of the previous mirrors, so purchased new ones of a higher quality. ...

Citroen DS Window Adjustment 1

Citroen DS Window Adjustment

The windows in a Citroen DS are frame-less.  This means they need careful adjustment so they seal properly and wind up and down to the correct height.   When my car was painted, the panels were refitted much better than before – they now generally line up!   A proper panel alignment meant my doors were in slightly different positions than before the paint.  Not only...

2017 Rolls Royce Concours 0

2017 Rolls Royce Concours

The 2017 Rolls Royce Concours was held at historic Linnwood House, Western Sydney.    As usual, they had a number of guest clubs including the Antique and Classic Car Club,  Rover, Alvis, Wolseley, Jaguar, Range Rover etc.    For some reason the Rover display was very small – perhaps they had another event running at the same time?  I attended in 2015 when the...

E-Type brakes, holding on for dear life 2

E-Type brakes, holding on for dear life

I’ve owned my E-Type for over 5 years now.   During my ownership there has been one issue that has consistently plagued the car – brakes that do not release when they should.   Over my ownership I have replaced pretty much the entire braking system, and some components twice! A couple of months ago, I had the master cylinder and booster replaced.   At first, I...

Citroen DS front end wiring – part 1 1

Citroen DS front end wiring – part 1

The Citroen DS has easily removable front wings.   They can be removed in a matter of minutes for various maintenance jobs.   Instead of one big plug like you would find on other cars (e.g. a Mercedes-Benz), individual bullet terminals need to be connected up for all the wiring to things like indicators, headlights, horns etc. Turns out that when my car was painted, the...

Finally, a working blower motor 1

Finally, a working blower motor

My story of fixing the W126 climate control can be summed up by:   If everything points to a problem with an expensive part, don’t waste your time trying to replace the cheaper parts around it in a futile hope it will solve the problem! After trying a used Climate Control Unit, new fan resistor etc, I finally bit the bullet and bought a rebuilt...

W126 Climate control woes 1

W126 Climate control woes

I’ve been fighting with the W126 Climate Control system for the last few months – and it’s been winning.    When I purchased the car in November last year, it was a very hot day and the A/C worked great.   It had a new radiator, so I took the evidence of leaking coolant to be history rather than a current problem.   Turned out the...

300SE poor hot starts 2

300SE poor hot starts

The 300SE has been suffering from poor hot starts.   It required a lot of cranking before it fired.   On a K-Jet car, this is normally caused by a faulty fuel accumulator.   From what I understand it’s the job of the fuel accumulator to hold fuel pressure after the car is switched off.   I also planned to change the fuel filter as I didn’t know...

2017 Sydney German Car Show 1

2017 Sydney German Car Show

The Sydney German Car Show 2017 was held today and as usual it did not disappoint.    A great selection of Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, VW and Audi’s were on display.   The only downside was that aside from the Micro cars, there was no representation from the niche German cars.    There was also only one pre-war car.   This event has really grown...

250SE Minor Improvements 0

250SE Minor Improvements

I had a couple of small jobs on the 250SE I had been meaning to do for months.   Since the car is to be displayed at the German Car show, it seemed like a good time to do them. One of the hubcaps was in poor condition.  I had another set of used hubcaps painted almost a year ago now.   However, I...

2017 ACT German Car Show 0

2017 ACT German Car Show

This weekend I was down in Canberra.  Since the 2017 ACT German Car Show was on, I stopped by.   Unfortunately, I was only able to stay for 10 minutes as I had assumed it was held in the regular location near the national library.   Turns out it had moved to Pialligo Estate, near the Airport.   Perhaps not as picturesque a venue, but...

Mounting NSW Historic plates 7

Mounting NSW Historic plates

NSW has a great historic registration system.   It allows for classics to be used for 60 days on a logbook for a drastically reduced fee.   For unknown reasons the plates issued are tiny plates with purple numerals.   The plates are so small they are not wide enough for the mounting holes on most cars.   As these plates don’t end up...

2011 British Car Show 0

2011 British Car Show

The 2017 British Car Show was the 37th such event.   The first one I attended was the 2011 British Car show.   This website did not exist in 2011, so the photos were never posted.     Its interesting to see many of the same cars are still attending the show.   Many of these are now sporting classic registration as NSW has...

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