The Mercedes-Benz museum is the best of the manufacturer museums I have been to. I was able to visit the new museum in 2008, which was a couple of years after it opened, replacing the old museum. I was already very impressed with the old museum and this new one was a big leap ahead. Of course the rich heritage Mercedes-Benz...
The current Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart opened in 2006, but it wasn’t new. There was a previous Museum that was replaced. The previous Museum was smaller, but it was still an excellent museum. It featured the most famous cars like the 30s F1 cars, the 500K, Gullwing etc. I was able to visit the old Mercedes-Benz Museum back in 2003 and recently...
The Gilmore museum is one of the worlds best car museums. I was able to visit back in 2010 when I lived in Michigan and it was a highlight. A friend of mine and I took a trip there in my E-Type, a nice 2 hour drive from Detroit. The museum is located in Western Michigan, about half way between Detroit and...
In 2010 I attended the Concours d’Elegance of America, at Meadow Brook hall. This is still the best concours event I have ever attended. I was living in Detroit, Michigan at the time and the event was held in the Detroit suburbs. The Detroit location also meant that there were various concept cars and other rarities that may not be at...
Previously, I had identified that the cause of my A/C problems was the fuse blowing. I have been narrowing down the problem more and more to the compressor clutch. Therefore, I wanted to eliminate everything else as the compressor is every expensive and beyond my skillset. I had already unplugged two other components that are part of the fuse 5...
The 300SE had a severe stumble at idle. It only occurred when the engine was hot. It never stalled the engine, but felt like it was about to. There was also a miss at takeoff. My initial thought was to check the distributor cap and rotor. However, on further examination, you could see sparking around the #6 spark plug. It...
When new, a W126 Mercedes would have come with four keys: Two square headed master keys. One round headed valet keys. A flat ‘wallet’ key. The master keys were designed for everyday use and opened all locks on the car: doors, ignition, glove box and boot. The valet key is similar, but does not open the glove box or boot if manually looked....
Today I got back behind the wheel of my old W123 280CE. The 15 minute and 5km drive is actually the longest I ever took in that car! This was a car I rescued more than purchased. The previous owner had it up on ebay with no reserve, had mis-spelt Mercedes and it was claimed to have a leaky radiator. Despite...
Pretty much all the buyers guides I read when researching E-Types say that drivers over 6 feet tall should avoid SWB E-Types. This means they are allegedly restricted to the S1 2+2, S2 2+2 and all Series 3 models. I was never a fan of the styling updates to the E-Type as it aged, so was keen on an early car. ...
The Traction Avant had a number of small issues that were impacting the overall drivability of the car. The car is now much nicer to drive after resolving them. The original engine driven fuel pump had been bypassed by a very noisy electric pump There was severe vibration on braking Front suspension was worn Valves were out of adjustment on #2 causing poor...
When I purchased my 300SE, the A/C worked well. I assume the overall Climate Control system did too. I never did test anything more than max A/C as the weather was very hot. Everything seemed fine, except for the little aspirator fan which was noisy. Unfortunately 3 weeks after purchase, the A/C stopped working. I was sitting at red traffic lights and...
Despite the newest examples being almost 30 years old, the Mercedes W126 is still a fairly common sight in Australia. Wheels Magazine awarded it the car of the year in 1981, a controversial choice for such an expensive car. They were popular both with private buyers, and the limo trade who racked up big mileages. 30 years later, good examples still change...
My ‘new’ 300SE suffered from a common problem with Mercedes of that era, a non functional odometer. The mechanical odometer is driven by a small electric motor instead of a traditional speedometer cable and associated gears. This is because the speedometer is electric yet the odometer is mechanical. This combination was common in the late 80s and early 90s before cars...
My ownership of the 300SE had been off to a good start until 3 issues reared their ugly head in the last couple of days. As outlined in the last post, the first issue was the A/C stopped blowing cold. I already knew I had to do a few things for the climate control – I could hear the little aspirator motor rattling away...
The 300SE didn’t come with much concrete service history. I started a full service on the car to establish a baseline. This will allow the car to be properly maintained to the factory schedule. The service items arrived this week, after a quick call to MB Spares in Canberra. So far I have done the following: Oil and filter change Renewed spark...
The Achilles heel of M116 and M117 engined cars is the timing chain. As the engine is an overhead valve engine, the chain is used to make sure the valves open and close when they should. On the V8 the chain needs to go to both heads and down to the crankshaft and so it is very long. This exacerbates the...
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