Hi!
Since RR seems to love to read about road trips - here's mine.
Last week I set myself a challenge. I gave myself two weeks, untill a Mercedes W123 estate had to be on the drive way. Budget was about 1250€.
I found an interesting looking example on mobile.de. Rang the seller and we eventually agreed on a buy. The car was located between Bremen and Bremerhaven. Now the interesting thing is that all the W123 estates had been build in Bremen! I guess that's a bit like collecting one from the factory there. Nice.
The difference is, that we brought a trailer with us, as the seller advised against using it on the road. Which might have ended catastrophical. More on that later.
Yesterday morning, we went on our way to Bremen, at 6:00 in the morning, after a very short 4,5 hours sleep. We; that's me, a mate of me and his brother and our great driver Kai. Since the trailer is heavier than the car and we estimated a total of 3.7t, neither of os could legaly drive the car & trailer. I don't know if your going to read this Kai; but thank you veryvery much again and hats of of to you!!
So we hooked the trailer to our tow car, a 5.2l V8 Cherokee.
Leaving the Black Forrest on the autobahn, heading north...
As the night was leaving, we slowly continued on our way north.
At this sight I had the first doubts gnawing on my thoughts; will we return with a pile of scrap on the trailer? Was it realy a good idea to buy a car unseen, for that price? And isn't the going rate for a saveable example much higher usually?
Soon after sunrise we had to fill the LPG tank with fresh gas. This should become a very frequent happening, as the smal LPG tank in the boot did only last about 250km...
The Cherokee was filled up with gas, and we filled our sleepy bodys with some fresh, hot coffee.
As we continued on our way, the weather got worse, foggy, misty, rainy and cold. The display showed -4°.
Time for another fill up. Funny, how all the LPG pumps are different. Parked her up for a smal break.
Some hundred kilometers north, the weather cleared up and the sun came out. It was still freezing cold - but the sun should stay and accompany usfor the rest of the day.
Eventually we got there and I had a first glance at the car 'in the flesh'. Look at the dark colour as contrast to the chrome and light interior!
It did look better than I expected it to be. Some stuff had been done, it had brand new original head lights, exhaust and stuff, some badly welded patches and the paint work is very faded and gone. Still it was love at first sight.
The engine did refuse to idle and then didn't start anymore. At this point I was happy we had a trailer with us. I signed the buying contract, handed over the money and we pushed her onto the trailer (my first drive with her! Yay! ;D)
It was at about 15:30 when we left the sellers yard and headed back south...
Guess what came next? Yes! Yet another stop to fill the smal LPG tank... ;D And another coffee for us. Rechecked the straps and went on.
We headed towards Bremen on the country road to fill up ourselfes with a bit of food. We had a bit for breakfast with us, but in the afternoon we felt the urge to have lunch. Found this in the parking lot...
We had pommes frites with Currywurscht and another coffee and a quick chat about quantum theory. The Cherokee had a nip of 10W40 for lunch.
McGyver style improvised oil filler...
As we were continuing our journey, the radio broadcast told us that the Autobahn 1 was fully closed for road work. This meant we had to go back through the Kassler Berge, a section of Autobahn with lots of steep hills. With a V8 and 2t on the tow hook. LPG is cheap, but if it's going to drink a lot of it it's still expensive... The sun left us and night set in.
From now on, we had to stop more frequent, as the Kassler Berge were draining the LPG tank at a dramatic rate...
We explored the full range of the MPG display, from the bottom to the top. from 56 to 2.5... Ooomphh... Atthis point I was realy worried that I had to over-stretch my budget, as the display rarely went below 50l/100km (5.5MPG!). Oh dear...
99l/100km resp. 2.5MPG or less!
After midnight and the worst hills left behind, we filled the LPG tank once more and went to Burger King to have short and very bad meal and some more coffee...
And then we had trouble for the first time... Almost home, 50km to go we ran out of LPG. And we didn't find any station with LPG. Unable to fill her up, we had a pee and continued.
And as we finaly found a LPG pump - it jammed and did an emergency shut-off. C**P! With only 14l new LPG in the tank we slowly continued back home, on the country roads - hoping to find a LPG pump.
Needless to say we didn't find any... So with the LPG gouge flashing red, we finaly arrived at my place. And she was at her new home, save and sound. This was at 4.30 in the morning. My neighbour complained - and we roared off with our V8 ;D
we brought back the trailer and the Cherokee to my mates place (his car), where I left my car the night before. And exactely as I left my mates drive way - my alarm-clock went off. At 5.25 in te morning. The time we started the day before. Andwith the 25th hour starting to show on the clock - I was back home. Kai had been driving for 24h/1500km straight - big big big respect!!
After all, we had an average consumption of 18l LPG. We needed way less than expected on the outard run. So it averaged out OK. And it was still a lot cheaper than with the petrol tow cars we could've used. Isn't it insane? A 220BHP 5.2l V8 was the cheapest tow car... ;D And probably the best sounding...
Anyway, thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed the trip
After short investigation, the W123 looks worse than it is. It had TÜV last year (though wasn't registered and on the road), the body work seems rigid, and a lot has allready be done (I'm going to inspect that extra-carefully). It's a lot of work, some smal trim parts are missing, the engine doesn't run - but I think I can have her on the road by summer.
I need to finish the W124 (signature) and sell it. Then I'm going to put the Mini back on the road and restore the W123 to road-worthyness.
Cheers,
Jan
PS: In case you still wonder about the 'potentially catastropic' bit; as it was home I found only 4 wheel bolts under the hub caps. On the whole car... Sh!++#€8€%!
Since RR seems to love to read about road trips - here's mine.
Last week I set myself a challenge. I gave myself two weeks, untill a Mercedes W123 estate had to be on the drive way. Budget was about 1250€.
I found an interesting looking example on mobile.de. Rang the seller and we eventually agreed on a buy. The car was located between Bremen and Bremerhaven. Now the interesting thing is that all the W123 estates had been build in Bremen! I guess that's a bit like collecting one from the factory there. Nice.
The difference is, that we brought a trailer with us, as the seller advised against using it on the road. Which might have ended catastrophical. More on that later.
Yesterday morning, we went on our way to Bremen, at 6:00 in the morning, after a very short 4,5 hours sleep. We; that's me, a mate of me and his brother and our great driver Kai. Since the trailer is heavier than the car and we estimated a total of 3.7t, neither of os could legaly drive the car & trailer. I don't know if your going to read this Kai; but thank you veryvery much again and hats of of to you!!
So we hooked the trailer to our tow car, a 5.2l V8 Cherokee.
Leaving the Black Forrest on the autobahn, heading north...
As the night was leaving, we slowly continued on our way north.
At this sight I had the first doubts gnawing on my thoughts; will we return with a pile of scrap on the trailer? Was it realy a good idea to buy a car unseen, for that price? And isn't the going rate for a saveable example much higher usually?
Soon after sunrise we had to fill the LPG tank with fresh gas. This should become a very frequent happening, as the smal LPG tank in the boot did only last about 250km...
The Cherokee was filled up with gas, and we filled our sleepy bodys with some fresh, hot coffee.
As we continued on our way, the weather got worse, foggy, misty, rainy and cold. The display showed -4°.
Time for another fill up. Funny, how all the LPG pumps are different. Parked her up for a smal break.
Some hundred kilometers north, the weather cleared up and the sun came out. It was still freezing cold - but the sun should stay and accompany usfor the rest of the day.
Eventually we got there and I had a first glance at the car 'in the flesh'. Look at the dark colour as contrast to the chrome and light interior!
It did look better than I expected it to be. Some stuff had been done, it had brand new original head lights, exhaust and stuff, some badly welded patches and the paint work is very faded and gone. Still it was love at first sight.
The engine did refuse to idle and then didn't start anymore. At this point I was happy we had a trailer with us. I signed the buying contract, handed over the money and we pushed her onto the trailer (my first drive with her! Yay! ;D)
It was at about 15:30 when we left the sellers yard and headed back south...
Guess what came next? Yes! Yet another stop to fill the smal LPG tank... ;D And another coffee for us. Rechecked the straps and went on.
We headed towards Bremen on the country road to fill up ourselfes with a bit of food. We had a bit for breakfast with us, but in the afternoon we felt the urge to have lunch. Found this in the parking lot...
We had pommes frites with Currywurscht and another coffee and a quick chat about quantum theory. The Cherokee had a nip of 10W40 for lunch.
McGyver style improvised oil filler...
As we were continuing our journey, the radio broadcast told us that the Autobahn 1 was fully closed for road work. This meant we had to go back through the Kassler Berge, a section of Autobahn with lots of steep hills. With a V8 and 2t on the tow hook. LPG is cheap, but if it's going to drink a lot of it it's still expensive... The sun left us and night set in.
From now on, we had to stop more frequent, as the Kassler Berge were draining the LPG tank at a dramatic rate...
We explored the full range of the MPG display, from the bottom to the top. from 56 to 2.5... Ooomphh... Atthis point I was realy worried that I had to over-stretch my budget, as the display rarely went below 50l/100km (5.5MPG!). Oh dear...
99l/100km resp. 2.5MPG or less!After midnight and the worst hills left behind, we filled the LPG tank once more and went to Burger King to have short and very bad meal and some more coffee...
And then we had trouble for the first time... Almost home, 50km to go we ran out of LPG. And we didn't find any station with LPG. Unable to fill her up, we had a pee and continued.
And as we finaly found a LPG pump - it jammed and did an emergency shut-off. C**P! With only 14l new LPG in the tank we slowly continued back home, on the country roads - hoping to find a LPG pump.
Needless to say we didn't find any... So with the LPG gouge flashing red, we finaly arrived at my place. And she was at her new home, save and sound. This was at 4.30 in the morning. My neighbour complained - and we roared off with our V8 ;D
we brought back the trailer and the Cherokee to my mates place (his car), where I left my car the night before. And exactely as I left my mates drive way - my alarm-clock went off. At 5.25 in te morning. The time we started the day before. Andwith the 25th hour starting to show on the clock - I was back home. Kai had been driving for 24h/1500km straight - big big big respect!!
After all, we had an average consumption of 18l LPG. We needed way less than expected on the outard run. So it averaged out OK. And it was still a lot cheaper than with the petrol tow cars we could've used. Isn't it insane? A 220BHP 5.2l V8 was the cheapest tow car... ;D And probably the best sounding...
Anyway, thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed the trip
After short investigation, the W123 looks worse than it is. It had TÜV last year (though wasn't registered and on the road), the body work seems rigid, and a lot has allready be done (I'm going to inspect that extra-carefully). It's a lot of work, some smal trim parts are missing, the engine doesn't run - but I think I can have her on the road by summer.
I need to finish the W124 (signature) and sell it. Then I'm going to put the Mini back on the road and restore the W123 to road-worthyness.
Cheers,
Jan
PS: In case you still wonder about the 'potentially catastropic' bit; as it was home I found only 4 wheel bolts under the hub caps. On the whole car... Sh!++#€8€%!
I've bought cars blind and inspected it for faults and thought "NOOOO! What have I done?!" then had another look with fresh eyes and seeing all the good stuff too.
The seller did advice against that because of the badly running engine, btw. No mention of missing bolts...
