what's a '72 280SEL worth?

i don't know much about them besides what you'll learn on wikipedia.

i'm going to go look at a 4.5 liter model tomorrow that is supposedly really nice.

I owned one in about 74. Very well put together cars except the leather cracked very easily and the vacuum power windows in the rear would keep breaking nipples off.

Oh, pretty fast.

Pictures and condition help determine price but thems benz don't fetch much over 4000 in very good condition. I hear the 4.5 is a great engine but the cars are very thirsty so not much demand. Great looking beasts and should be built like a tank. Check for rust, if mercedes didn't use heavy gauge metal these cars would have been to dust as they don't have any rust proofing.

Friends of ours have one. Theirs is the 3.5 V8 but it still moves out pretty well. Gas mileage is pretty crappy and I would imagine the 4.5 would be even worse. It's a great car, but expect to have to replace everything rubber. I've seen them as cheap as $500 for a rough one, but I would expect ~$2500 for one in decent shape. As benzbaron said, I wouldn't pay much over $4K unless it was near showroom or better. To me, they're kind of a bargain for what you are getting.

Concur, a max of $4k and it better be real nice for that kind of money.

Only slightly relevant, but I love old Benz's. Friend of mine had an early 70's sedan. Thing looked nice and very conservative, but it moved out well. Under the hood was an inline 6 with DUAL CARBS. No surprise to Benz enthusiasts, I'm sure, but it impressed me.

I would guess the car would be pretty thirsty.

1988RedT2 wrote: Only slightly relevant, but I love old Benz's. Friend of mine had an early 70's sedan. Thing looked nice and very conservative, but it moved out well. Under the hood was an inline 6 with DUAL CARBS. No surprise to Benz enthusiasts, I'm sure, but it impressed me. I would guess the car would be pretty thirsty.

The V8s are fuel injected on the '72s. Dunno when that started, but all the 6s I've seen have been dual carbed. I know some of the sixes also came with manual transmissions, as well. Not sure if any of the V8s did. My personal choice would be the six with the manual trans. if I were to keep it original. If I was going to do a swap, I wouldn't care.

and old-timer told me that the timing chain guides will wear out and let the chain get slack enough to either bind up or jump time, which can wreak havoc since (ihrc) it's an interference engine.

'71 had higher compression so a little more power than '72.

all the V8 cars were fuel injected.

check completed auctions on ebay for valuation, but i see a ton of the SE cars under $3k, and the SE L cars seem to bring a little more.

i dig 'em a lot and will be getting one in the near future.

i've been communicating with the owners son.

his words not mine: "it's midnight blue, been repainted, looks perfect. the interior wood & leather has all been refurbished professionally by my dad. zero rust."

You could get the 3.5 v8 with a manual, they wernt sold new here though, all the us spec w108s with a v8 were 4.5s. Nice ones go for as much as $15k now from what I have seen, but there are certainly still lots of cheap ones. Parts are not in the least bit cheap though, so make sure you are comfortable with that before you buy it. Any benz older than the w123 and w126 can get expensive, although the more common models seem to not be as bad.

UPDATE:

i met the son to look it over... it's not an SEL, it's a 280SE. odo is five digit, and reads 74,500~. the owner bought it roughly ten years ago. he was right about it being a V8. The body is utterly rust free. At the inside bottom of the doors, at the jacking points, in the wells of the trunk, it's just perfect. The paint was not fresh, but seemed to be to a high standard.

the interior appears to be vinyl? no tears or meaningful wear anywhere. the dashboard all looks great.

the son claimed they were in the process of replacing an injector seal to cure a hesitation in the engine. also they were changing out a front brake caliper that had seized. supposedly the a/c works. i noticed that the exhaust was suspended at the tip by bailing wire that been lovingly shimmed with flat piece of rubber. this was the only piece of half-assery i noticed.

i really like it. a lot. he's going to finish up those injector seals and brakes, then i'll be back for a test-drive. then we'll talk price.

They will stretch a chain and that's what breaks the guides. The clue is a rattle at startup as the hydraulic tensioner has to fill and then push on the chain. Don't let the timing chain jump, they will bend every valve in the left head if this happens!

The chain can easily be rolled in, some of the guides can be replaced from up top. If the ones at the bottom are broken (sorta rare unless the chain comes off) the front cover has to come off and that's a beeyotch.

I saw a few cars come through with wiped cam lobes, that seems to be more a 450SL thing but it's basically the same motor. I think it's back to that whole ZDDP in the oil thing again. The weird thing is, it seems to be mostly the left (drivers) side that does this.

The dizzy ignition point plate will get sloppy, then it won't idle well and will backfire on acceleration. Some (not all) of the point plates are still available, you have to check by the dizzy number. Come to think of it, some of the dizzy caps are NLA also. The injector points do not often require replacement but if they do... whew. The injector point set is ~$700.00 IF you can find them.

i am surprised how many basic parts are available through NAPA where i work. am i crazy to believe i could just drive the thing around like a regular car?

You can replace the injector point with a pertronix unit and it probably is a good idea to do that as I hear the injector points can be a pain to get right. When I hear people talk about setting the dwell angle and the trouble you can have with it I'm glad my car has electronic ignition. I should probably upgrade my ignition also with either a pertronic or msd kit.

I think the cars are mechanically injected and use an injector pump to move the fuel but I don't know the stroke eights that well.

Good luck and keep us posted.

The 4.5 in the w108 was 72 only right? I think all the sel cars were w109s.

i don't know that one, but this is a W108 with a 4.5 & short-wheelbase.

I think that car has Bosch D-jetronic. The 6 cylinder 280se had mechanical injection though if I remember right.

Btw, be glad it's not a w112 300se, the distributor caps for those cost $1400 (yes I typed that correctly).

My wife had a 72 250 sedan as her first car, she loved it to death, and its the only car she's ever owned that she was comfortable enough with to drive on the highway. Sadly it was very expensive repair and maintain, even with me doing all the wrenching. It was a very well designed and constructed car, I've worked on construction equipment that wasn't as sturdy, it was not hard to work on by any means.

I never had any trouble finding parts for it M-B still carried most of them, the problem was the cost.

I never had trouble with parts, cost or gas mileage.

Mine was stolen and buried up to the axles in mud and they just kept the accelerator pedal down until it got so hot the braze joints on the radiator let loose.

It was remarkably inexpensive to fix (compared to what I'd thought and the cost to have the engine rebuilt on my Vette). I had it hot rodded a little and loved it. My wife still wants one of the 2 seaters from that era.

Travis_K wrote: The 4.5 in the w108 was 72 only right? I think all the sel cars were w109s.

according to this guy, both the 3.5 and the 4.5 were available in North America in '71, and the 3.5 was not available in North America in '72. pretty sure the 3.5 was dropped because in '72 the compression ratios were lowered and the 3.5 wouldn't have met US market customer expectations.

referring only to the V8 cars, W108 is the coil spring suspended car, and carries the 280 model designation, whether short (SE) or long (SE L) wheelbase. W109 is the air suspended car, and carries the 300 model designation. all 300-series cars were long wheelbase, ie no 300 SE.

well the son believes his dad is going to want something around $8,500 for the car. it's worth extra to me that it's just what i want, and it's local, but i don't think i'd pay too much over $6,000 for it.

nobody really commented on my question about how absurd it is or isn't to try daily driving this thing.

Depends on the meaning of absurd, and this may not be the best forum to ask those questions. Remember the discussions about daily drivers with roll cages? We have guys who DD what's basically IT cars!

But I'm going to say even $6k is too much. My old boss at the Mercedes shop sold his personal very nice, even had working A/C, 280SE 3.5 for ~$5500.00.

Not quite apples to apples, but CMS paid $1600 for their solid-but-needs-sorting 230S:

http://classicmotorsports.net/project-cars/1966-mercedes-benz-230s/merry-mercedes/

i hear you guys on the pricing. there's not much to pick from in nebraska. particularly this rust-free. that means my alternative is to travel and risk disappointment. i've sortofhalfway wanted one of these for a long time, i don't mind if he has it 6 more months to decide i'm right.