W123 instrument clusters are notorious for jumpy temperature and fuel gauges and mine was no different. This problem seems to impact other Benzes of the era, but is particularly pronounced in the W123. I don’t really like not being able to trust my gauges to be generally correct, so I wanted to see what I could do about this. The issue seems to be...
My 1981 240D was sold new with a Becker Europa 596 Cassette. The Becker was still in the car when I purchased it, but it would not stay tuned. It would randomly drift out of tune and need constant adjustment. I found that rather annoying, I removed it to be serviced and put in a Europa II temporarily. A friend in the Mercedes club...
Back in September, when I started to deal with the algae problem in my 240D, I noticed the car was quite hard to push. At that time I tested to see if the brakes were grabbing and it was clearly the fronts that were to blame. The rear wheels spun freely ever after a hard push on the brake pedal. Since I had the...
In the last update, I ruined my W123 fuel tank. Luckily, a friend in the Mercedes Club was able to find me a very good tank as a replacement. The new tank is much better than what I had, and probably far better than a home resealed tank. It was from a 280E, which means it is an 80 litre tank. I will have...
In the last part, I used a fuel tank sealing product to seal my W123 fuel tank. This seemed to go quite well, but it turns out I had made a fatal mistake. Once I had coated the inside of the tank, I very carefully cleaned the openings for the sender unit and strainer. I made sure the threads were clear of any sealant. ...
In the last update, I cleaned out all the junk from my W123 fuel tank. At the time I was undecided if I should do anything about the surface rust in the bottom of the tank. In the end I decided to. The rust was just surface rust, but it covered quite a lot of the bottom of the tank. My general preference for...
Earlier this week, I removed the fuel tank from my 1981 Mercedes 240D. This was because I was unable to get the fuel strainer out from the bottom. It turned out to be not such a bad thing, as once I had the strainer out, I could see that the tank was still quite contaminated. On my last article I had some good...
Over the last few months, I have been dealing with the algae problem in my 240D. I’ve been quite busy with my trip to Victoria and work, so the 240D has been on the backburner. However, I am keen to get the 240D back on the road, so started work again in the last two weeks. Previously, I had determined that the fuel strainer...
Over the last week or so, I’ve been dealing with the algae in the fuel tank of my 240D. In the last update, after changing the fuel filters, I added the Penrite Diesel Biocide. I was already noticing after about 30 kilometers the pre-filter was looking quite dirty and the car was down on power. It seemed that some of the algae was...
Yesterday, I posted an update on my 240D showing how I had changed the petrol filters. A friend pointed out that my filter was full of algae. My 240D was from a deceased estate and it’s condition and mileage make me think it didn’t get a lot of use in recent years. Algae seems more prevalent in cars that have sat around for a...
Since I purchased my 240D, I had planned to use ‘Diesel Purge’ to clean the injectors and injection pump. The car runs well, but it is a bit rough at idle and I figured this would probably help. This was part of my plan to clean the fuel system for the entire car. I have a suspicion that the strainer in the bottom of...
My 1981 Mercedes 240D still has the original Becker Europa 596 Radio. This is one of the last of the analogue radios before the cars moved to the digital radio with the Becker Grand prix 612. The main issue with the Becker is that it does not stay in tune. I’m constantly having to adjust it to stay on an FM station. In addition,...
I just got my 240D back from having the motor mounts changed. When I purchased the 240D, the motor mounts were one of the few obvious things that needed attending to on the car. They looked pretty bad and the engine was shaking at idle. On a W123 or W126, normally I would go with the Lemforder motor mounts, which are excellent. I...
The under bonnet insulation on my W123 240D had started to crumble on the edges. While it had only just started happening, it also appeared that the car didn’t have a proper insulation mat. I’m not sure if it was an older aftermarket option, or something cut to size but it looked like some thin light coloured foam. Since I was doing this...
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...
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...
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