Back On The Road

The car has undergone most of the "small" jobs that were left, and is close enough to completion for me to be driving it.

The rest of the metal surfaces under the plastic paneling were cleaned and protected with some antirust stuff, and the paneling was reattached with the correct fasteners. The panels are now much firmer - unlike before they don't feel loose to the touch.

The idle air control valve assembly was taken apart, cleaned and lubricated. However, the mechanic reported it had worked ok before the lubrication, so the high idle issue is likely not caused by the IAC valve being stuck/too stiff.

Block heater was installed and works ok.

We messed with the fuel mixture, but so far the result has been pretty much a shot in the dark. When I drove the car away from the shop yesterday, the idle was somewhat where it was supposed to be, however the idle was very rough and I thought it might be best to tune it a bit more. So we messed with it again, and now the idle is slightly higher, but still pretty choppy. Also, the engine doesn't pull smoothly, which is most likely caused by the misfiring cylinder #5 becoming more of an issue with the messed-with fuel mixture.

The misfire is not caused by bad spark which means the plug and wiring is ok. And coil is probably ok too. Currently the diagnosis is that the cylinder is not getting enough fuel. Need to diagnose this further. Well, at least I've got "enough" cylinders left over to get me to and from the shop.

Anyway, found out that the passenger side orthopaedic seat controller is also faulty, so need to source one of those.

The rear lights and wing indicators I sourced from a donor S-Class were a perfect fit. The latter were even identical which I wasn't expecting, I'm thinking the "tuning" indicators on this car were originally meant for a sedan and not a coupe. Unfortunately the front indicators I bought from the wannabe-Halfords were for a sedan and I can now confirm they won't fit on a coupe at all. So now I'm waiting for another parts shop to ship replicas which should be specifically for the coupe. They should arrive Friday.

So currently, I'm running mixed indicators, which don't look as catastrophic as I was thinking but still are worth the money to straighten out.

As you can see the car is running a bit rich...

The interior switches & lights project is still in the planning stages and should commence in week 2 or 3 of January...

Adding Originality

After much deliberation, I have decided to go with the original color (amber) indicators after all. Reason being, while the clear fronts looked awesome, the rear lights looked tacky, very boyracerish.

I received the new-old taillamps today.

I got them from a guy with four W126s, which leaves him with an ample supply of spares. I also got the orthopaedic seat adjusters from him.

Tomorrow I'll pay a visit to our local version of Halfords to get some new front indicators on the cheap. Sure they'll be replicas, but the quality was actually not bad when I bought one for my C124.

I received wing indicators in the same package with the taillamps but it remains to be seen whether they fit ok, since the sedan and coupe indicators differ slightly.

Progress!

After more and more delays, there is now progress. Tires arrived and went onto the rims with no problems. The BBS's were mostly balanced apart from one which required quite a large weight (80g). That will be a rear wheel for sure. Anyway, was pleasantly surprised to be able to even source the correct type bolts off the shelf of a tire seller in town. The BBS's require ball-type bolts with a 30mm long thread, while the Monoblocks used a 25mm bolt with a cone head. I was prepared for a long wait while sourcing the bolts but got very lucky.

The shop is now installing the new blower motor and hopefully the side panels after that.

New wheels are mounted. In response to claims that they are too narrow / too much offset in the back:
- I consider this a nice 80s retro look (or a classic car look if you prefer), and very gentlemanly in comparison to low offset wheels, or god forbid ones that bulge outwards.
- Remember, 205 is right there in the ballpark for a W126 stock tire. 225s or somesuch are an expensive cosmetic upgrade with tradeoffs in comfort. The diameter of my wheels is slightly too small as the stock size is 215/65 and I'm running 205/55. This results in an increased speedo error but I'm willing to live with it in order to save 50% in the price of tires at this time.

Sit Rep: Car Still Sitting

I have good news: today the BBS wheels arrived. After numerous delays, even some loss of hope, and threats of a police investigation...

Restored BBS RS 008 7x16" ET24 set

Tires (205/55 16" GoodYear Ultra Grip Ice+) should arrive tomorrow at the earliest, Friday at the latest.

Meanwhile, the car is sitting outside the garage, gathering snow. Nothing's happened since last update while we were waiting for the whole wheel business to be concluded. Work continues tomorrow or the day after, depending on whether they can get a man on the job on such short notice. The remaining issues should not be too time-consuming, mostly it's just disassembling and assembling the center console to get to some of the backlights.

Building the Exhaust

Everything went smoothly with the remainder of the engine timing rebuild project. New seals and gaskets went in and the engine bay stuff was reassembled soon after my last post.

What's new is on the exhaust front.

The old muffler with some of the pipe that comes in from the cat. It was clamped together as you can see in the premortem pic in an earlier post.

I had a chance to shoot a short vid with the exhaust ending at the cat; straight pipes, oh yeah!

It was loud and loud V8's are always fun, but obviously, despite the grin on my face, it doesn't compare to a nice exhaust setup. The exhaust note with straight pipes is always very rough and edgy. Such a setup does not fit a daily driver. Thus the exhaust build went on:

Test fitting the Magnapacks.

Some of the catback pipe complete, test fitting the muffler. As you can see there's very little clearance between the muffler tips and the rear skirt; this 18" muffler (24" with pipes) is definitely the largest muffler you can fit on a C126. Any longer and you'd have the carve up the bumper to get the tips to fit. At this size it was still possible to fabricate corner pieces like the original muffler and have the tips protrude where they should, through an incision in the bumper.

Muffler goes exactly where it should and hangs no lower than the stock exhaust. Stuff like that is important to me personally; I should be able to use the car normally and go anywhere I please, despite the custom exhaust. The car should never run out of ground clearance on the road.

Getting the clearance issues near the driveshaft sorted required some gentle adjustments.

Closeup of the tightest space. When the car is sitting on the ground the axles sit higher, thus there is more room than you would expect looking at this picture.

Nearly finished shape.

New setup fabricated and installed.

Tips. They're a bit larger and obviously different shape than on my old C124 but the configuration and feel is pretty much the same.

First impressions on the new exhaust: it was much quieter than I expected, which is nice, considering the extra expense of adding the resonators. I'm glad they worked. Haven't heard them in real use yet, which is always a killer. I know from experience Magnas get a lot louder when they get up to temperature. I hope there isn't too much drone.

Unlike on my C124, a 3.2 straight six, the sound is very very Magnaflow-like. Just like most Magnaflow setups on YouTube. This is a good thing as I'm very much a fan of the note. Here's a vid I shot at the garage, more will come when I get the car on the road.

Next up: interior switches and blower motor. In addition, correctness of the fuel mixture is still unclear and it's still idling 200 rpms too high. It's possible the garage can't fix it, in which case I'm planning on running another idle speed controller from a buddy who also owns a 560 SEC and seeing if that drops the idle speed. Also, there's the side panels, rustproofing etc. Still a lot to do.

I haven't received the BBS's yet either, which is not great, because of multiple reasons. First, I was stupid enough to pay in advance and they are now very very late. Getting worried. Also, the car's slowly but surely reaching completion at the garage, winter has arrived while the car's been there and it's still running summers. I won't drive a yard with summers in these conditions, it's full-blown winter outside. Also, time-wise, when/if I do receive the wheels, it's another week till I receive the GoodYear Ultra Grip Ice+ tires I'll be putting on them. At the moment, it's looking like the car will have to remain at the garage in a completed state for some time...

DD-ization, Part 2

The Mercedes been in the shop for 2,5 weeks now. As you would expect they started at the top of the list; timing chain and guide rails. Unfortunately the job of getting the guide rails changed wasn't as much of a breeze as I'd hoped. To get access to the bottom guide rails, you of course have to take off the timing cover. However, to do that, you need to disassemble pretty much everything there is in between the engine and the radiator grille, and that's not all, you need to work the underside of the engine as well.

I was glad I decided to have them changed though, one of the upper guide rails had already snapped clean in 2. I was really worried the other rails were beginning to go as well. Gives me tremendous peace of mind to know the chain & rails are brand new.

This is the bare minimum amount of disassembling you need to do to change the timing chain. You can just feed the new chain in through the exposed sprocket at the end of the camshaft. For this the bulk of disassembly was the airbox & inlet pipes.

Both cam covers removed. At this point you can check the upper guide rails for wear & damage.

Most of the front now disassembled, some work still left to do before the timing cover will come off.

Fruit of all that disassembling labour: timing cover is off as is the old chain. All of the guide rails can now be replaced; what a great time to notice one of them was not shipped! A few days' wait for a very cheap, but crucial part.

New chain is installed, the red guide rail is the one that was missing.

While doing this I'll be replacing almost all of the seals that are involved, including water & oil pump seals, cam cover seals, etc. Next week the timing cover should be going back on and the engine bay slowly back together.

A pic from under the plastic side paneling, as you can see there's very little corrosion, which is a relief.

The shop will treat the inside with anti-corrosion gel and reinstall the side paneling with proper fasteners.

Pipe Dreamin'

Today, the Magnaflows arrived.

Left: twin Magnapacks, which will act as resonators. Right: rear muffler.

I was glad to hear the same place where I'm getting the rest of the work done can do full stainless steel exhaust work. They get to do this later on.

Overall look of the current almost stock exhaust. The Magnapacks will be installed right after the cat, and pipes fabricated to the rear, where the big muffler will go just like you'd expect.