1991 Mercedes 300 SE W126 - A trip to Great Britain

[rr69h]

Hey there,

I feel it's time to introduce my daily which has served me well during the last three years.

In 2008 I graduated from university and with job-offers coming in and the perspective that soon my trusty Merc 190 D won't be allowed into most city-centres due to new emission-laws in Germany it was time for a re-think. So with the frugal diesel soon-to-be outlawed it was only natural to go for a thirsty, but legal petrol! ;D

The W126 has always been one of those cars I've always dreamt about so I felt the urge to find me a decent example. Since there are quite alot of them on the market I settled on the following specs for my hunt:

- DB904 Midnight Blue which to me at least is the best and most elegant colour for the W126
- grey leather
- aircon (never had a car with one of those)
- automatic (dito)
- original alloys
- every engine as long as it's no 260 (for once I wanted to avoid the enty-level engine) or 560 (as they seem to command a premium on the market)
- one of the very last examples after 1988 which have much nicer color-coded bumpers

I did expect a long and painful search looking at dozens of lemons. But I was quite surprised that only after two weeks I ended up with this:


It's a 1991 300 SE bought from the family that owned it from new. The sad story of a husband dying and a now redundant car that was his pride and joy led to me continuing to keep the car in tip-top condition. I dearly had to promise this to his widow before she handed me the keys. We e-mail each other from time to time and she's glad that the car is with an anorack enthusiast who keeps her husband's legacy somewhat alive. That's why it'll remain totally stock which to me at least is what the suits the W126 best.



The spec is pretty impressive for a 300 SE, its showroom price was just a tad under 100.000 DM back in 1991 (read: similar to a povvo-spec 500 SEL or THREE 190 Diesels!). These are the factory option-codes:

211 Limited slip-diff (ASD)
291 Driver- and passenger-airbags
300 Lockable storage box on centre-console
404 Orthopedic driver's seat
412 Electric sunroof
420 Automatic transmission
440 Cruise control
531 Automatic antenna
544 electric rear shade and iluminated mirrors in the front sun visors
580 A/C
592 Heat-insulated glass all-round including heated rear-screen
600 Headlight washers
611 Interior light package
620 Catalytic converter
640 15-hole alloy wheels x5
682 Fire extinguisher
731 Interior wood in walnut
751 Becker Radio Grand Prix 2000 vk RDS
873 Heated seats for both front seats

Merc anoracks might have noticed the car's numberplate. This is where I got really lucky: D-ZZ 104 was one of Mercedes's press-cars and is featured in the very brochure that I was given at a Mercedes dealer when I was six years old.
Nowadays my Mum lives in Duesseldorf (that's what the plate's "D" actually stands for) and I was able to get that very combination for my own car! It costs me an extra 150 or so Euros each year MORE to insure the car via my Mum (she likes hitting things with her Twingo ), but that numberplate is worth it!

So what does it actually feel like to own and maintain such a complex car? After all, my other cars are all pre-1973! In essence: I love it to bits. The W126 has just so much thought put into it and shows so much attention to detail... the guys who were building it must really have loved their job. It's the perfect blend of a fairly classic car that simply doesn't feel or look outdated.

Here it is watching me in my office:


And a couple of pictures what it looked like shortly after buying it:









But where's light, there's shadow as well. I knew it had some easy-to-fix problems. More on that in my later posts in which I'll try to give you an impression on what I've been doing with it over the last three years.

Oh, one last note. This car has done 307.000 Kms or about 200.000 miles. It hasn't missed a single beat and doesn't show its age nor its mileage. These cars were definetely built to last.

Speak to you soon!
Felix

[BenzBoy]

Very, very nice! Lovely bit of history with the car too. In my opinion, the W126 represents the peak of Mercedes excellence (and cars in general). I would include the W123 and W124 on that pedestal too.
Fantastic cars, and such attention to detail. Way before their time I think - I remember removing the gear shift lever from an early '80s W126 and finding fiber optic cable in there!

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Lovely! And that it wears that number plate - awesome!

I guess if people say 'Mercedes' they mean 'W126'. Very nice.
Can't get better than an 1980's Mercedes. And yours is truely an excellent example of why

Gruß,
Jan

[ThePollitt]

That's a great car and a wonderful story to it too. In the sense that you plan to keep it standard, that is. The owner passing away is sad of course.

I own a 1989 300SE and also use it as my daily so I know where you're coming from (there's a link in my sig if you want to see it).

You should be happy with it, I'm exceptionally happy with mine.

Chris

P.S. Out of curiosity, what do the buttons under the ash-tray do? Mine doesn't have those.

[rr69h]

Thanks for the positive comments!

Benzboy: you'd be amazed what you find when taking this thing further apart. One of my favourites is a little sticker that tells you how to sort the HT leads in order to fit them into their plastic housing.

Chris: yours looks lovely too! I like things to be stock, but your choice of rims really suits it. Did you have any trouble with your BERU dizzy-cap? I've heart that they tend to wear out much faster than the Bosch-parts do...
As for the mysterious buttons: The centre one operates the rear shade (a great way to friendy tell tailgaters to sod off), the outer ones operate the heated seats.

April 2008

Speaking of which: since the HT-lead housing was broken I went to Mercedes to buy a new one:



I was surprised how cheap most parts are. The housing was around 6 Euros.

Then I had to address one of the most common faults on the W126: rusty front wings. One was beyond repair so I swapped it for a rust-free used one in the same colour:



This has multiple advantages. First of all: the fitment is perfect instantly and you don't have to carefully adjust the panel-gaps of a new wing. The color-matching is perfect, too given that the wing was roughly painted around the same time than the rest of the car.

One month later it was time for its first service. Yup, I had enjoyed the car so much that put on almost 10.000 Kms during the first two months of ownership. Back then I used it for my daily commute to work and did roughly 60 miles each day on the Autobahn in enormous comfort.

I've found a garage in Cologne which specializes on the W126. These guys know the car in-and-out and offered me much advice on what needs to be done to the car.
The first service included new fluids all round (including the transmission, diff, ASD hydraulic fluid and power steering fluid besides the obvios oil and brake-fluid change), new brake-pads, spark-plugs and an air-filter. And of course this sticker:



Next up was a restauration of the front axle. It wasn't feeling tired, but all of a sudden it made some really strange noises which turned out to be the steering-arm bushes and the lower ball-joints.

The end of May saw me flushing the cooling-system:



Mercedes recommends using citric acid to get rid of all the limescale within the radiator and the engine itself. So that's what I did:



The opportunity was right to stick in a new thermostat as well as one of these:


Guess which one ended up under the bonnet.

I was quite impressed how milky the water looked. But as a result the car was running a little cooler so on to the summer of 2008. More on than within the near future.

Felix

[rld14]

Mar 8, 2011 20:33:38 GMT ThePollitt said:

P.S. Out of curiosity, what do the buttons under the ash-tray do? Mine doesn't have those.

Chris,

The other ones are for heated seats, the center one is probably for the horn, it's a city/country switch.

I had a 560SEL and miss it. IMHO the W126 is quite simply the finest luxury car ever built.

[stwat]

Very nice indeed, Felix.

I have just acquired a 1989 300SE in smoke silver with only 65.000 miles on the clock

They are indeed fantastic cars and so over engineered.
I thought the 190's I had owned before were good but the 126 is simply on another level of refinement.

I look forward to your updates about the car.


Stu

[mclellanmac]

That really is a beautiful car! Very jelous

[rr69h]

Evening all,

Stu: 65.000 miles? Wow, congratulations! And smoke silver is a very nice color for it, expecially with black leather. I will be posting some more stories about the car, after all I'm currently translating only a few stories from my blog 904dunkelblau.blog.de, but since it's German only, it might take me a while to get this thread over here up to date.

mclellanmac: thank you! No need to be jealous though, it's not a very special car. It just happens that it's become very special to me.

Anyway: the summer of 2008

First of all I turned my attention to all things covered in dead cow. The symptoms were very typical for a car that had covered 150.000 miles: the driver's seat started to show a little wear and the steering-wheel showed some marks at the outer left side. I suspect the latter was caused by the first owner wearing a ring of some sort... The recoloring-set was aquired from German "Lederzentrum" (www.lederzentrum.de/tip/auto/fresh.html The link is German-only, but the pictures speak for themselves), a company that has huge experience in restoring all sorts of different leather-types. The result after carefully cleaning the wheel and applying some new paint resulted in this:


Ah. Factory freshness.

Next up was a broken lightbulb. Sounds easy, right? Sadly the bulb in question was the one iluminating one of the temperature-dials in the centre console. So after ripping out the ashtray and the radio you can simply unplug all the switches from the wiring loom to be greeted by this:



I replaced the broken bulb and put it all back together only to perform the exact same operation a week later when one of the other bulbs broke. The lesson here: replace them all at once, they only cost pennies (Merc's part number is N000000001061 in case you were wondering).

Next up: Mascara ála Mercedes-Benz. The headlight wipers are not only functional, they look great, too. But the paint on the wiper arms doesn't stand the test of time very well. Before:



...and after repainting:



And finally, some rust-repairs. The rear left wing showed some first signs of rust, but after some sandblasting a little hole appeared:



Same with the left rear door:



With added metal and some fresh paint it was time to go out and play. Music that is: some 80's-esque albums just sound so right through a Becker stereo. One of my favourites is Róisín Murphy's album "Overpowered" from 2007.

It combines the fantastic voice of Róisín Murphy with some tasteful hat-tips to the early stuff by the Human League and the excitement of some of the recent works of David Bowie. "Overpowered" is highly recommended for nightly city-cruising:



So with the car sorted and the ipod filled it was time for a first test-run. SWMBO was stuck in the city of Weimar which provided an excellent opportunity to use the car as its builders intended: covering huge distances at a reasonable pace in maximum comfort. Cologne to Weimar is about 400 Kms (210 miles) or 3,5 hours at the wheel of a 300 SE. You got to love those Autobahns. ;D



So much for now. Up next: further repairs and a heap of shiny new parts.

Felix

[bsd]

I miss my 300se! The guy that bought it from me, scrapped it due to it needing part of the exhaust and brake pipes! The fool! We don't speak anymore...
Yours is a peach by the way.

[beemerlad]

Lovely example

A car for life

[stwat]

Nice work in the body. I need to tackle a few bits on mine too.

I also need to replace a bulb in one of my temp controls so thanks for the tip on replacing them all while the console is stripped

ps, mine has mushroom leather not black I'm really loving the electrically adjustable heated seats at the moment. The electric headrests are great ;D

Fantastic cars

Can't wait for the next instilment.

Stu

[Mark]

Looks fantastic!! I've always lusted after a W126 and a W124 - Mercedes Golden Age imho!

[Ray Singh]

I'm fast falling for these retro Mercs. My preference would be a 500E or E500 but this just oozes class and quality.

Must go and check how many MPG a 300SE would give me.....

[UtterPiffle]

Lovely car, great numberplate, brilliant thread.

Hey, I live in Düsseldorf (Pemplefort). If you ever need a hand working on your w126, give me a shout. I have had 3 of them (all coupes), and know the car pretty well (especially anything to do with the suspension, brakes and wiring - oh, and LPG conversions!).

[UtterPiffle]

Mar 11, 2011 8:22:51 GMT Ray Singh said:

I'm fast falling for these retro Mercs. My preference would be a 500E or E500 but this just oozes class and quality.

Must go and check how many MPG a 300SE would give me.....

About 30-33 if you are gentle.
The 500 would return about 24 on a run and single figures in town!
The 560 would return about 18 on a run and gallons to the mile in town!

However, throw a BLOS based LPG system in there (cost around £400 with second hand parts + a weekend spannering), and you have a luxury barge that costs the same to run as a Fiesta.

[Onne]

Very nice car. I have a 300SE too, with cream leather (I think the colour is called Linen)

Just out of curiosity, what kind of oil pressure do people get at idle?
Mine hovers around the nr 1 on the gauge.
I'm running on LPG too, I get about 19 mpg out of her, thats with stop start traffic.

[UtterPiffle]

Mar 11, 2011 8:46:19 GMT Onne said:

Very nice car. I have a 300SE too, with cream leather (I think the colour is called Linen)

Just out of curiosity, what kind of oil pressure do people get at idle?
Mine hovers around the nr 1 on the gauge.
I'm running on LPG too, I get about 19 mpg out of her, thats with stop start traffic.

Down to 1 is normal at idle, so long as it pops back up to 3 when you blip the throttle.

What LPG system are you running Onne? I had terrible trouble with blowbacks using a standard mixer. It was also horribly restrictive and reduced top end power hugely.
I then discovered the BLOS LPG carb. You get almost full power, no blowbacks and much better fuel economy. They cost about £100, but it is money well spent! Here is a pic of one installed on a merc 4-pot, but the application is the same.

[Onne]

I'm running a mixer on mine, had a blowback yesterday for the first time, no pleasant! I hope it hasn't damaged anything, she's been a bit harder to start over the last couple of days.

Glad the oild pressure is ok then. I agree with the huge loss of power.

Where do you get one of these BLOS LPG carbs then, do they just replace the mixer?

[UtterPiffle]

Mar 11, 2011 12:39:20 GMT Onne said:

Where do you get one of these BLOS LPG carbs then, do they just replace the mixer?

I am aware that we are hijacking rr69h's thread, so I will pm you the details...