Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[Zelandeth]

Out and about again today. Stopped in one of the local car parks and grabbed a couple of photos.





These cars really do have quite some road presence. Can't really think of many things which compete in that regard other than the like of Rollers, Tatra T-603...

Really does suit the estate body as well I think, so many estates look clunky or out of balance compared to their saloon or hatchback variants, whereas this shape just works for me.



Gave the interior plastics a really quick wipe down this afternoon with some vinyl & rubber care solution. Never ceases to amaze me how much life that alone can bring back to the interior of a car.

They really were quite dull and chalky.









The interior really is a pleasant place to be. Even in spite of a partly collapsed driver's seat base.

While I had the stuff out, gave a few of the exterior plastics a quick wipe down as well - totally forgetting the grey bit of the radiator grill. Derp.



Noticed while doing this that there's quite a bit of condensation in the nearside headlight.



Given how warm it currently is have just popped the rear cover off it, hoping the weather will dry it out for me. I'll have a closer look to see if I can see any evidence of where water may have got in at a later date.




Courtesy of a local independent locksmith we now have a non manky set of keys, the tatty ones it came with have been relegated to the spares drawer. They both worked fine but the ignition key had long since lost the plastic handle bit so was really awkward to use.

Has reminded me that I still need to get a spare made up for the van, as they have the right blanks will run by there again tomorrow to get one made. Not having a full set of spare keys makes me really uncomfortable... especially as I've locked them in it once already (and had to break in via the gas locker and unbolt the sink from underneath to gain access!).

[furriegurrie]

I really do enjoy reading your blog! Rarely post here, but felt it wouldn’t be a bad thing if I let you know people like what you’re posting. I like the Mercedeses eventhough I’m no real Merc lover. I also recognize many things that bug you, very funny to read! The one thing that really sticks out like a sore thumb for me on the latest addition to your fleet is the orange marks on the lower front grill and the seam between that and the side of the car. I’m really not a metal worker nor a cosmetics freak and my cars are far from concours state (the C6 maybe the exception. My M1800r Suzuki certainly is) but I’d definitely be doing something about that.

Keep posting! I’ll keep reading, thanks!

[NewcastleFalcon]

I do like a nice brochure shot Zel and this one is just that.

I really do enjoy reading your blog! Rarely post here, but felt it wouldn’t be a bad thing if I let you know people like what you’re posting. I like the Mercedeses eventhough I’m no real Merc lover. I also recognize many things that bug you, very funny to read! The one thing that really sticks out like a sore thumb for me on the latest addition to your fleet is the orange marks on the lower front grill and the seam between that and the side of the car. I’m really not a metal worker nor a cosmetics freak and my cars are far from concours state (the C6 maybe the exception. My M1800r Suzuki certainly is) but I’d definitely be doing something about that.

Keep posting! I’ll keep reading, thanks!

I hadn't read furriegurrie's post this morning but wholeheartedly concur with everything written. I had even pulled out this web capture ready to post, and was going to comment that this bit was the minor cosmetic "worst bit" which prevented the image being the perfect brochure shot

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

I bet it was easier for me than it will be for Zel!!

Edited from Zel's picture

[Zelandeth]

To be honest I think a lot of that is just the curse of a white car! I've not even washed it yet much less started to look at the cosmetics beyond wiping down the interior (which is the bit which will bug me the most). Reckon quite a few of the rust stains will all but disappear once the polish comes out.

Rocker cover gasket arrived this morning so should be able to look at getting the valve clearances set and the top end at least something resembling oil tight soon. Then will get an oil and filter change done. I'm looking forward to that as I'd really like it to stop sounding like an 80s 1.1 Fiesta.



Fuel filter was done not massively long ago, but I don't know precisely when...so I'd like to get it on the service log. I'm seriously tempted to fit the old fuel pump from my Saab as the one currently on here makes an utterly horrendous, piercing whine. Just need to look up the specs for the two to make sure they're the same - but my gut feeling is that they will be.

Normally I'd have already done the oil & filter change, but I'm holding off until I've done the valve clearances and have cleaned up the remains of the old petrified rocker cover gasket that will no doubt be stuck to the head. I'm bound to get some crud washed down to the sump when I do that, and I'd rather do that immediately before rather than right after an oil change.

One thing I noticed a day or two ago was that the tailpipe was only sitting in one of the rear hangers.



Upon reattaching this errant hanger it immediately became apparent *why* it was detached as a horrible rattling buzz reverberated through the car. The unmistakable noise of an exhaust pipe touching the underbody.

Right here.



The reason that one hanger was removed was because they were too short. A simple fix at least by sticking a couple of slightly longer (50mm diameter) hangers in there instead.



While in that corner I investigated the non functional reversing light. Just a case of dirty contacts, after a quick clean it was back in action - though it needs a good clean and ideally a new lens.



As I had hoped the condensation in the nearside headlight has cleared up completely.



Annoyingly I then spotted there's similar damp in the offside one...it will get the same treatment next week.



Was interested to discover that the inner two elements in the headlights aren't actually used for main beam (as on the Ford Sierra to name one car with a visually similar structure to the lights) but appear to be front fog or driving lights. Really need to track down an English PDF of the handbook!

[Zelandeth]

Couple of things done today...first of which you likely won't be able to see on camera - cleaning the inside and outside of the windscreen. It's nice being able to see where I'm going now. Inside was particularly bad with a really thick, greasy coating on it.



Had a nose around under the bonnet with a view to seeing what I need to move to get the rocker cover off. Doesn't look like it should be too bad.

Found a nut and a few washers so have replaced the missing nut on the exhaust manifold.



Couldn't actually see or hear any sign of it blowing there, but at least I know it's bolted up properly now.

While the exhaust manifold doesn't seem to be leaking, the rocker cover definitely is. Oil everywhere.



I am seriously looking forward to cleaning this engine bay. Not only will it be immensely satisfying, but it will be really nice to not get covered in black grime every time I so much as walk within ten feet of it.

Realised this afternoon that I'm going to need to spend more money before the proper cleaning can start though as my pressure washer died a couple of months ago. This shows that she really needs a good clean outside as well as under the bonnet.



Sadly my pressure washer died a couple of months ago...so I need to replace that sooner than later.

Spotted something that needed immediate attention today...this looks like it might be a vacuum leak.



Yep, that will be letting a bit of air in.



Found another one of these in a similar state over on the offside inner wing. I don't have a diagram of the vacuum system yet so not actually sure what this does just now...There are a lot of vacuum lines on this car as a lot of things operate off vacuum. Central locking and headlight height adjusters to name two.



I'll probably go around and change all of these boot connectors at some point as they're all a bit soft. Thankfully the lines themselves are plastic and still seem in fine shape.


Speaking of rubber that needs changing, the supply line for the self leveling suspension is looking rather sorry for itself.



Will look to get that changed soon. I do need to confirm what type of fluid this uses - though the initial glance at Google seems to suggest that it's basically LHM with a Merc logo on. Which would be nice as I've a load of that in stock. It certainly *smells* like LHM.

I think one of the first non mechanical tasks will be seeing what I can do to straighten this roof lining trim.



This panel needs to come out anyway for two reasons. One is to replace the tailgate gas struts, the other is to fit rear speakers as there currently aren't any.

The moulding is basically fibreboard and I imagine has got wet at some point. Hoping that with a bit of persuasion I might be able to get it to sit flat again. Apparently getting this hooked back in place is a pig of a job so hopefully I'll only need to do it once.

[Zelandeth]

What do you need to do to pull the rocker cover on a W123 with this engine?

1. Remove air cleaner housing (4 10mm nuts and pop two PCV hoses off).

2. Remove HT leads from the little plastic channel they sit in.

3. Detach the throttle cable at the engine end (little ball and socket setup, just pops off) and feed it back through the cable bracket.



4. Remove the nuts (noting that one is a bolt and post arrangement to hold the ATF dipstick in place).

5. Lift off rocker cover. That's it...ten minutes tops. It's almost as though someone during the design stage thought that you might need to service a car one day.

Speaking of servicing, that's something somebody earlier in this cars life didn't pay much attention to. She clearly never had regular oil changes... it's quite manky in here.



Sadly there is evidence of damage due to this...the camshaft in particular looks to have taken quite a beating, a couple of the lobes on cylinders 2 and 3 have some really rather nasty scoring.



That is why you should change your oil and filter regularly, folks...

Valve clearances were a mixture of slightly loose, perfect and slightly tight. I think whoever was last in here just set them all roughly to 0.2mm from the feel of it. With them reset she does sound better, though a couple of valves definitely are still clattery. I suspect trying to quiet things down far is a bit of a lost cause given the state of that camshaft.

One thing I am definitely going to do when I've next got an hour free will be to pull the spray bar off and make sure that all the holes are clear, if it's clogged the cam will obviously be starved of oil.

Solving the issue properly isn't necessarily a huge headache given that I just happen to have a complete spare head sitting in my conservatory.



In which the camshaft looks like this.



So somewhere down the line one of two things will likely happen.

A: I swap the camshaft and rockers over from the spare head.

B: I drop the spare head off to be professionally cleaned, inspected, valves lapped, new valve stem oil seals fitted etc...and then just swap the whole head over.

B probably makes the most sense - though in the same breath the bottom end of the engine has suffered exactly the same degree of neglect...so dropping a lovely rebuilt head onto it without doing any other work might be a bit silly... though I do keep being told how hardy these engines are...so we'll keep an eye on things basically. Regular oil changes will definitely be adhered to though going forward! I'm not immediately worried, but definitely want to keep an eye on things.

[white exec]

That is an alarming photo of oil-change neglect. A Rover V8 would never have survived that sort of abuse, with its aluminium rockers. An absolute disgrace, Hopefully some effective detergent-action new oil and some hot running will clean things up. Had the car just done pottering about in recent times?

[Zelandeth]

I'm pretty sure that this is historic gunk. It's been pretty regularly serviced in the last few years. The ATF was changed just over a year back with the pan dropped, filter changed etc. What came out didn't look too horrible.

This engine has a replaceable element oil filter, so I'll probably make a point of cutting that open when I change it, likewise at future oil changes to keep an eye out for excessive amounts of glitter.

[Zelandeth]

Given we had obvious signs of poor lubrication on the camshaft that at least verifying that we had clear holes in the spray bar made sense. Especially as I had a spare present on the spare head, so simple to clean that up and just do a swap.

Here's it having just been removed - it has four pretty small holes in it which provide a drip feed of lubricant to the cam lobes, one for each pair.



They are pretty tiny.



Despite the head that came off being about 93% cleaner than the one on the car, only two of the holes were clear...doesn't bode well for the one on the car. I gave the "clean" one a thorough clean and got it flowing nicely.

Ten minutes later, had them swapped over.



Having clean metal to contrast it against really highlights how grubby that top end is.

All back together.



Has it made any audible difference? Not really. Though at least I know there's a good chance of lubrication getting to where it should now.

The old one was pretty manky indeed.



Only one of the holes was clear, one other was about 50% clogged and two were completely missing in action - and you couldn't even see them for the gunk...so I think this was worth doing, even if most of the damage is already done it makes me feel better.

Being finished messing around under the rocker cover for a while I decided it was time for us to actually change the oil and filter. Went out for a run first to get everything nice and warm and to ensure as much of the gunk was stirred up in solution as possible.

Sump plug unsurprisingly is really easy to get to and came off without excessive effort. What came out was really dark but I've definitely seen worse. It was dark brown rather than black ink like you tend to find in diesels.

Oil filter has some crud immediately visible on top of the filter even before it was pulled out.



This definitely looks to have done its time...the fact that part of the filter has collapsed tends to suggest to me it's a bit plugged.



It has actually pulled the element away from the top cap there.

Out of curiosity I will dissect this filter to see if there's any evidence of issues visible.

New filter in, new O-ring and copper washer fitted to the filter housing...



The old O-ring had (like the rocker cover gasket) pretty much turned to plastic.

Double checked I'd refitted the sump plug... possible to do easily from next to the car as you have line of sight of it from above.



Then refilled with some fresh oil, started up and checked for leaks. None present.

I'm not used to seeing this sort of thing actually making any visible difference...but this has where hot idle oil pressure is concerned. When at full temperature, in gear at idle I used to see 1 bar or fractionally above of oil pressure (it jumps off scale as soon as any revs are really used).



So it looks like I've gained somewhere in the region of 15psi of oil pressure at a hot idle. Not going to complain at that. I may try 15W 40 for the next change (10W 40 or 15W 40 are recommended) and see if that makes a difference.

Think my oil change program on this car is basically going to be "Change it as soon as it starts to look dirty" for a while.

[Zelandeth]

After 30 or so miles today the rocker cover still looks to be oil tight...except for the oil cap which looks to be weeping.



I did check that the PCV was clear when I had the cover off and it seems to be. The problem I think is actually that the paint is flaking off the rocker cover meaning that the sealing surface isn't flat.



My solution is pretty simple...scrape the remaining paint around the cap sealing surface (having stuffed a rag in there to catch the flakes). Yes I did spot I'd missed a bit after taking this photo.



We'll find out next time I have the car out probably tomorrow.

Only other thing I did today was to get the new front speakers fitted. These had been upgraded at some point in the past, I'd say somewhere around 2000 based on the speakers found. Discovered why they rattled so badly... because they weren't screwed in. Just sitting on top of the dash. Turns out this has also has resolved one of the main rattles in the dash in general.

The new ones are just cheap units (all of £16 from Halfords) but that really does show how far speaker technology has come over the years in that they're far better than the Sony ones that came out.



The dash moulding here is actually metal under the surface so now these are screwed down they are very securely anchored. The grill just fits over the tweeter thankfully. Equally thankfully the neon orange is completely hidden behind the grill.

The passenger side one sadly has one broken clip on it so the grill doesn't clip down securely at the front edge, I'll need to see what I can do about that - as I'm certainly not paying the £50 someone is asking for one of the covers on eBay at the moment.

I need to take some measurements to confirm if I have enough depth to play with, but if so I'll probably just throw a set of the same speakers in the rear. As you've only got little 4" enclosures to play with (though the front ones do have proper acoustic foam in the enclosure behind them) I don't really think there's a huge point in paying big bucks for speakers. What I'll probably do is look into getting one of those little self contained under-seat combined sub and amplifier boxes to just help things sound a bit more rounded out. Should be easy to just run the wiring through the centre console as well without needing to dismantle too much.

Speaking of wiring...I really do hope that Mercedes included wiring for the rear speakers as part of the loom as routing wiring all the way back there will be a major faff. Especially with the speakers being mounted in the head lining. Not holding my breath there though!

I know audio is really low priority compared to a lot of things, but it's one of those things which make the car nicer to live with so I'd like to get it properly sorted sooner than later.

In more useful news, a set of bootlid struts have now been ordered. The next specific task I'm probably going to go after will be the trim on the bootlid. It's tried to cut my wrist twice walking round the car now and I really don't want that happening to some random member of the public who then decides to sue me.

Trim is one of the things which just aren't available new for these cars and the prices for used parts are just silly if you look at the likes of eBay, so it's a case of make do, mend or wait patiently until something turns up at a sane price, most likely found through word of mouth rather than any internet search.

Tyres will probably be getting changed next week or the week after. She will be getting a full set of Uniroyals fitted, and (if it's better than the current one) the best will be retained for the spare. She does wander around a bit so I'll have the wheel alignment checked while we're there - I think the main issue though is just a bit of play in the steering box which we might be able to improve a bit with some adjustment.

So we are doing more important things than just replacing speakers!

[Zelandeth]

Hmm...can you tell which panel I experimentally gave a wipe clean then hit with the polish and wax this afternoon?



Looks like the paint might actually come up better than I expected. The actual colour change was a surprise! I honestly thought the car was a slightly warm white...no, it is actually a pure brilliant white. She just needs a really good deep clean.

Tyres have now been ordered, garage have said they'll just give me a call when they're in and I can just drop by then. Will be nice to have that done as the current set vary in age from 2017 at the newest to 2010 at the oldest and all have pretty significant perishing. Front two look superficially fine as the sidewalls are OK, but they're cracking up inside the tread area instead. Shame as I'd have probably kept one for the spare - not going to trust them for that duty though (as goodness knows how many years it might sit perishing more before I need it).

I always like to have a matched set of tyres on a car anyway so this would probably have happened anyway...as it is though these have had it. While being able to provoke a drift at just about any speed on a damp road is occasionally amusing, it's less than ideal in the real world when you're just trying to pull away from a set of traffic lights on a busy signalised roundabout. Especially when you notice there's a police car behind you. Yes the garage to order the tyres *was* the next place I stopped after that!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Nice pointers. First glance I thought you had missed 181818 but maybe not, that second digit a 6 isnt it?



Regards Neil

[Zelandeth]

Nice pointers. First glance I thought you had missed 181818 but maybe not, that second digit a 6 isnt it?



Regards Neil

The degree of fading is impressive, they would originally have been an almost fluorescent orange I believe. Mileage is indeed just coming up on 162K.

[Zelandeth]

Brief vintage technology intermission...it's no secret that I've a major soft spot for the Toshiba T1200, and this has developed into a bit of a problem, there are now four and a half of them here, one of which works, three that don't plus a pile of assorted bits.

Then I spotted a very vague ad on eBay for one with one fuzzy photo a week or so back for £50 delivered. I grabbed it. I didn't really care about the operational status based on the fact that A: It's a hard disc equipped model so provides a spare drive (they're a drive that uses a proprietary JVC/Ricoh interface which are consequently basically extinct)... though the main thing which grabbed my attention was the case.

These machines nearly always yellow to some extent. However this one looked pristine in the photo. I was expecting this to have flattered it (especially as it looked to have been taken on a 90s webcam).

I was a little alarmed when this box arrived yesterday...simply as it's about half the size of the box I would have used to ship one of these.



Nevertheless it looked to have made it in one piece. Guess I'm just lucky they didn't ship it through Yodel.

Somewhat to my surprise, the photo hadn't exaggerated it...it is astonishingly free of yellowing. With a bit of a clean this case will qualify as minty fresh I reckon.

My existing running machine is shown for comparison. It's worth noting these were never pure white but a cream colour from the factory.











At the *very* least this will provide a donor case for my working machine. Being a factory hard drive model it has the correct labelling on the status indicator lights showing drive letters A and C rather than A and B as on my current one.



In addition to that the screen looks to be good (they tend to fade, allowing the pinkish colour of the backlight to show through if they're failing - a deep indigo blue is what you want to see).



I'm not daft enough to even *consider* plugging this straight in given that one of the most common failure mode of the power supply boards is to shove 12V down the 5V line. Power supply whipped out.



Yep...covered in capacitor goop.

Having been through the "parts washer" it looks like the traces have survived...so with a fresh set of caps hopefully it will live to fight another day.

This leaves me with an interesting quandary. I'm sure at this point that I have more than enough parts to assemble a full second machine. Given the prices these go for in fully working order on eBay these days there's a definite temptation to build one up and see if I can flip it and make a bit of money. Though that sounds like a lot of work as dealing with potential timewasters and such on eBay is always so much "fun."

I definitely don't need a full second machine...and while I want to have spares on hand, I don't feel the need to hoard them...

Most likely I'd end up offering the second (which would be the scruffiest one as I'll be keeping the cleaner case for mine) one on here and a couple of other forums I'm on for a more realistic price than what seems to be the going rate.

Getting ahead of myself though, no idea if the power supply will come good, if the motherboard is any good, if the hard drive is seized up... let's see how that goes first.