The W123 "Estate"

In reply to Slippery :

Yep, same ATE caliper as my Volvo, too. 

In reply to orthoxstice :

Correction, clearly not the same because they aren't available through any of the typical local sources, unlike the Volvo versions. Same pads though, interestingly. Looks like I'll be waiting on rock auto again. 

One small project at a time; I treated the car to new fuses all around:

And a little scene from the side with a functional caliper. The car looks great from this angle! All of that fluid on the ground oozed out of the cv joint; every one of the boots is ripped completely around so more to add to the list:

Nothing like a little after-dark valve adjustment. I only made it through the first two cylinders. I need to make an angled 14mm to do the rest, plus it was getting late. No urgency on that though as the rear of the car is still in the air. 

An aspiration of mine had been to attempt to rebuild the entire SLS system to get the rear of the car off the ground and back in the air, but I noticed something earlier while walking past the car... the leveling shocks are gone. What's on the car are generic (probably sedan) shocks. People are selling pairs of untested cores for like, close to $500 now. A rebuilt pair runs you upwards of $1200, based on a quick google search. Not sure I want to invest that (plus $300 for nitrogen chambers, plus the cost of rebuild kits for the pump and the leveling valve) in a car worth maybe $1k (as it sits currently). I think I'll have to do some reading about what actually works as a swap that has a functional ride height and decent comfort. 

I'm terrible at doing the fix/repair posts; especially when it's a frustrating or a dirty fix because I completely forget to take pictures. 

It's been a big week with the Mercedes. I got the new rear caliper on and the brakes bled, so that's a relief. These rotors probably need to be turned but maybe I'll just do the old road-turn (drive on them anyway). I finished the valve adjustment with the help of a torch-and-sledge bent 14mm wrench. For a procedure that needs to be done somewhat frequently, access is not great. I replaced the power antenna which was all bent, mostly because it looked ridiculous waving around nearly a foot above the roof of the car. The motor runs when jumped and so I was able to feed in the new nylon cable, but the dash control button does nothing. Lastly, I dropped the pan and attempted to replace the filter. Except the filter I got from Rockauto is for the later models of 722 transmission (I assume). Needless to say it didn't fit. But since the car sits outside I couldn't really leave the pan off so I replaced the pan seal and reused the old filter. I filled it up with some generic Dex III equivalent stuff and went around the block. I think the vacuum modulator is probably unhooked or non-functional because I'm getting FIRM shifts. 

Oh, and there's a horrific accessory belt screech under basically any throttle. So the list grows longer. I'm not sure I'm cut out for the whole "drag an abandoned car out of a cornfield" thing after all, everything is broken or needs maintenance.

In reply to orthoxstice :

Regarding the firm shifts. I cant remember exactly, but there was an adjustment by the transmission on my w126. Had to be careful as you did not want too much slip, but it was noticeable when playing with it. Maybe its the modulator you refer to. 

I think you change he modulator for stiffness, I put the AMG w126 one in my coupe and it will spin hitting second if you accelerate heavily (usually starts off in second so you have to rip off the line).

As for everything needing attention that's actually what I like, I have a daily so touching everything while making it usable is what's fun for me. because of this I rarely finish a car because I get it to a point where someone else sees it as a viable option to finish. And I start over. It is exceedingly frustrating if that's your car though.

FINALLY put the car on some new tires (came off a wrecked sedan in the yard. DOT date code says August of 2023 manufacture) and received my antique tag from the Commonwealth. I ripped it around the neighborhood to shake down the rebuilt brakes. First impressions are that while it drives surprisingly well for how absolutely ragged it is, the non-turbo is a real experience to drive. It's a true foot to the floor type experience at every light and stop sign. Also, the trans will shift into 3rd and 4th but it takes forever.  I've been doing some reading and it seems the '79 and '80 cars use vacuum signal to determine shiftpoints somehow, unlike the later cars. I'll have to start digging into the vacuum system. That made for some interesting driving characteristics; reving the 5 cylinder diesel way out before the trans would suddenly grab third. 

Now that the car is feeling mechanically pretty sorted it was time to start digging into the horrendous, moldy interior. What I found was... not good. Not good at all:

Now I shouldn't be surprised. Apparently even the good ones are at least a little soft if not rotten somewhere or other. But that's a pretty daunting hole in the floor and I don't have the skills, tools, or interest in fixing it. Or I guess I should say; you can either do it the right way or you can do it anyway and I'll probably tend towards the latter. 

I've been trying to sort out the vacuum stuff for this car (in order to get it to shift properly) and finally figured out the VCV is bad and cannot hold vacuum. Mercedes used their venerable 722 transmission in this but without any Bowden cable. The VCV bleeds off vacuum proportionate to throttle position which replicates how things happen on a gas car. Seems kind of kludgy to me and I guess Mercedes agreed because the transmissions were only vacuum controlled for a couple years. 
 

Anyway they don't make them anymore and the rubber diaphragm inside is not serviceable. They're also NLA through Mercedes and have no aftermarket option. This leaves me either the Hail Mary of the absolutely haggard car in the junkyard (I'll check this morning) or spending $100 on eBay for another one that's 40 years old. 
 

I love 80's cars and all their quirks but I really wonder how all of this is going to continue in the longer term. Seems to me the complexity of OEM fuel and ignition systems may not allow for the continued use of the original systems. 

The haggard car in the junkyard was actually wrecked, which usually implies it was running. I grabbed the VCV off of it and... it's even worse than the one on my car. Now I'm deep in the weeds of trying to figure out a way to potentially repair one of them. They have a molded rubber membrane that must be leaking, so I'm not actually sure what to do about that. 

I might have to suck it up and just drop the money on a known good one.