Tool, and his Tools (An Originality Story)

Lately I have been analyzing the datacard of my car and spending some time getting to know how it was accessorized from the factory.

Here's the list of options for this car.

228 AUXILIARY HEATER
245 ON-BOARD COMPUTER
291 AIRBAG FOR DRIVER AND FRONT PASSENGER
300 STORAGE BOX IN FRONT TRAY
404 ORTHOPAEDIC FRONT SEAT BACKREST, LEFT
405 ORTHOPAEDIC FRONT SEAT BACKREST, RIGHT
406 DESIGNATION NOT RECORDED [ortho seats also]
430 HEADRESTS IN THE REAR
540 ROLLER BLIND, ELECTRIC, FOR REAR WINDOW
551 ANTI-THEFT/ANTI-BREAK-IN WARNING SYSTEM
620 EMISSION CONTROL SYSTEM
682 FIRE EXTINGUISHER
873 SEAT HEATER FOR LEFT AND RIGHT FRONT SEATS

The "auxiliary heater" is a Webasto unit that pre-heats both the engine and cabin. It has a control panel forward of the gearlevel. Sadly, the heater unit has been removed from my car, as it would not run, according to the previous owner.

The on-board computer refers to the reiserechner trip computer.

The 291 and 300 options were always added in pairs, as you can't have a glovebox if you elect for a passenger side airbag.

The emission control system designates this car as a catalyzed one.

Rumor has it, the fire extinguisher was mandatory in Germany for cars with engine capacity of more than 2.5 litres.

Manual aircon, electric seats with memory, all electric windows, electric passenger side mirror, limited slip diff, Becker stereo system, rear window heater and power antenna were all standard in a 560 SEC. Thus the option lists are usually rather short on these cars.

So, over the winter I've been digging into the accessories that originally came with the car and making sure I have everything. On the microfilm page, you can see a breakdown of all the different accessories.

When I bought the car, it had the original spare tire and jack, which was nice.

The spare is a 7x15" ET24 old-style Kanaldeckel wheel, which I assume is the rim type that this particular car originally came with in all four corners. The spare is in pristine condition, save for the missing center cap, which spare alloys cannot have.

It also came with an original toolbag, but that one wasn't in great condition. Most of the tools were missing and the trim at the edges of the toolbag was cracking.

After some digging, I'm guessing that these old Mercs came from the dealerships with slightly varying toolkits. As you can see from the microfilm the following special tools were available from the factory.

(41) Screwdriver with 2 detachable bits
(44) 2-part (collapsible) spark plug tool
(30) Tire iron

Also added to toolkits:
- 3 wrenches in the most common sizes with Mercedes-Benz logos
- Small pliers
- A little tool with threads for matching the wheel to the bolt holes

I was able to locate a wrench, pliers, wheel fitment tool and a screwdriver from my old Merc. I asked the buyer and he didn't want them so I got lucky there. I took the toolbag from that car also, and used it for the SEC. The worse condition bag is now in my mom's 190E which was missing a toolbag completely. I also sourced a pristine tire iron for the SEC from Germany.

Here's the almost complete toolbag.

Note that this is a version of the toolbag with the black Mercedes-Benz logo stamped on it

I've also been looking at gear knobs. I'm guessing, but not sure, if this car came from the factory with a black leather knob, similar in shape to the plastic one in the W201. That would make sense and correspond with most respectable looking images on Google.

Sources:
http://mercedesbenzblogphotodb.wordpress.com/
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mercedes_W126_500SEL_Armaturenbrett_1.jpg
http://theknifeandme.wordpress.com/

One in good condition might be cool. Don't really like the accessory-style wooden ones.

Killing Time

While the car has been in the garage, waiting for the engine rebuild, it's been possible to continue the center console project. I first started working on it soon after the corner light switch.

Interior - Starting Point

Tasks there were:

• Remove embarassing AMG sticker installed by a PO
• Replace aircon switch
• Replace air recirculation switch
• Replace bulb in roller switch for passenger side temperature
• Replace bulb in air direction switch
• Get rid of crappy JVC head unit and buy something good instead
• Install a switch for disabling the electric antenna for winter use

Ash tray and head unit removed

 The radio was a real bitch to remove. Turns out the previous installer had extended the little protruding things in the case and needless to say I didn't have the remove tool for that particular head unit. However, with patience I got the POS off.

There were some wires running behind the radio, to nowhere, which I figure were originally the front speakers (the car is now running Infinitys or something like that, OK sounding) and a phone / hands free system of some sort which has been removed.

The last one to touch the wires was a Swedish shop. The car's a Swedish import.

New switches and bulbs in

While I had the ashtray out I cleaned and polished it, and changed the bulb in it.

Antenna control switch I soldered together; its purpose is to prevent the automatic antenna from operating when it has frozen solid in the winter, when I am listening to MP3s and an antenna is not necessary. Operating the antenna in those conditions would be harmful to the electric motor.

To replace the crappy JVC I bought a... new JVC. Oh well. In my defense, I looked at the competing Sonys, Pioneers, Kenwoods etc. and they were all rubbish. Ugly and really barebones compared to a similarly priced JVC. The only real contender was Alpine which was also pretty low on features, and felt like a really rubbish plastic toy, which is saying a lot when the JVC is already pretty plasticky.

Anyway, this JVC solved all the problems I had with the previous one:

• No stupid "screensaver" animations
• No stupid animations anywhere else, or at least they're toggleable
• No beep every time you push a button on it
• Has front USB and can interface with my iPhone from there
• Can control the iPhone
• Works instantaneously on shuffle instead of reading a CD for 10 seconds while switching songs
• Can be set to any color, like nearly the Mercedes amber, instead of being "light up my car" white and "rip the hair off your head" red all the time
• Lowest volume setting is actually pretty quiet, unlike before where it was still pretty high

In addition, the new JVC has a multi-row display which can actually display some useful information about the song being played, and for a modern head unit, it's surprisingly understated in design.

Also, it's got a software EQ which is nice.

New head unit installed and center console assembled

The antenna control is visible in this picture, tucked inside the driver's footwell

Back Off The Road

Couple of weeks ago, when I was getting the car to the shop, a tire was pretty low on pressure. Filled it up there, drove the car home, and had a nice weekend home.

Woke up on Monday and was going to drive to uni. This time the tyre was truly flat. Two others were also starting to look pretty low. Off to the tire shop to learn how to diagnose stuff like this and how to use soap water. Turns out air was gushing out from between the lip and center parts of the threeparter rim, and also from underneath the bolts that hold the rim together. No choice but to take the wheels off, tires off the rims, and inspect.

Long story short and after some studying how BBS 3parters actually work, turns out the German restorers who worked on the rims had done a rubbish job of sealing the parts.

That is their silicone seal. In some ways it's correctly done but with a few buts:

• Really, you're supposed to seal the parts between each other... Not outside the meeting surface like that. Though I will admit, this method is used a lot, because of how easy it is to do, I guess.
• You're in no event supposed to use silicone, it doesn't grip enough.
• The whole process had been botched, the seal was very uneven and flaking off.

When I ripped it off, it provided almost no resistance, it was like peeling a banana. No wonder it held no air.

Also of note is the fact the bolts were part hex and part double hex. Apparently the restoration included changing some of the bolts but not doing all of them while they were at it. And no, I didn't think to check this when I received the rims and put rubber on them.

The bolts were really loose, nowhere near the 26Nm of torque which is somewhere in the ballpark of BBS rim bolts.

So, my solution was, in chronological order:

1. Take off the silicone seal.
2. Remove silicone remnants, oil, etc
3. Let dry overnight
4. Apply new seal in the same fashion using Sikaflex. It was ugly but I was sure not to leave any gaps where air could escape.
5. Let dry overnight
6. Loosen and retorque bolts to 26Nm in crisscross pattern
7. Let dry for a week

End result:

Did it work?

No.

Tried to put tires on the rims, they were still leaking like crazy. Better than with the silicone but no choice but to admit defeat and either get someone to disassemble the rims and do the seal properly, or if it looks too expensive (like hell I'm paying more than a 100 for it) just sell the rims. Either way I won't be using the BBSes now. Remains to be seen whether they become my summer wheels. I'm now looking for winter rims.

Anyway, after all that, the car had been sitting outside for a couple of weeks. While I was running around hammering my head against the wall with the BBSes, the car had the Aeros on it which of course were summers.

All the while, it was snowing like hell, and occasionally in the +'s, which made the snow heavy, and I was rarely home to clean the car up. I was really worried the hood, roof or trunk lid were gonna cave. Luckily they held.

Luckily, a friend was in possession of a set of 16" "Kanaldeckels" with some correct sized friction tires so I was able to borrow those to get the SEC into warm storage, and to and from the shop. So off I went to put them on.

Only... One of the Aeros is stuck. More specifically, one of the bolts just went round and round.

I was able to limp the car in warm storage on 3 Kanaldeckels and 1 Aero.

My knee-jerk reaction was that the bolt was rounded, but that wasn't actually the case... Drove the car to the shop for them to have a go at removing the offending the bolt. It came off real easy with the lug gun. Turned out the bolts for the Aeros were falling apart. The offending one had already lost most of its thread and the remains were in the opposite thread.

Some cold sweat and a thread cleanup tool later we had 4 Kanaldeckels on the car. Time to trash those bolts...


Such are the joys of owning multiparter wheels.

At this point, since the car was in the shop for a change, it was time to continue to project for a little bit (on borrowed time):
* Put in the correct air recirculation switch which I was able to source used.
* Diagnosed the one "dark" cylinder. Only this time it was somehow a different cylinder than the last time. Well, spark was good. Did a compression test. No good compression. AFAIK, and according to what the mechanics said, this can only be caused by a bad head / valves. So the car will be going in for another pretty thorough engine rebuild next Tuesday...