'88 W124 Ex- Berlin Taxi - suddenly a millionaire

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Booooo! The radio died. It had increasing worse reception and didn't find stations anymore. So I checked everything with the wiring, all seemed fine. So I went to try a different antenna - and when I tried to unplug the antenna cable from the frequency splitter - SPARKS. *WTF!?* Radio was on - but I've changed antennas many times with the radio switched on (to select good ones).

Well - this time there were fireworks - and after that the radio was completely dead once and for all. Hnngh.

I opened the splitter box (for radio and radio - er, darn- why is this the same word for walki-talki-radio and radio-radio? ) to see if there was any visible damage - and look what I found stashedf in there for who knows how many years!



The original Kathrein installation instructions

And guess what I have just sold?? All my other (admittedly cräp) radios....... HNNGH. HNNNNGH!!! I'm so blöödy glad there's a nice sounding six pot uner the bonnet I can listen to Anyway, new old Becker on it's way from Romania

Odometer is at 931.500 today

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Oh - and I found the two missing pieces for the full rubber boot floor!



Unfortunately, someone cut them to fit the roller blind. Originally cars with roller blind from factory had shorter rubber mats. I probably need to make some sort of shim to space out the roller blind, resp. the brackets. So it fits over the rubber mats - right now it doesn't... Bit of a bügger, but these are so rare, you have to work with the stuff you can get.

Cheers,
Jan

[fer4l]

Loving it!

[TurboDieselWeasel]

So - I found the issue with the radio. Or so I thought. Yesterday I found a broken earth wire - which explains the sparks (earth drawn vie the antenna cable). Fixed - all good. Radio working again.

But his morning - loss of reception again... HNNGH.

So I took it all apart again - and found yet another issue, this time not as easy to fix.

The wire from the frequency spliter to the antenna is broken off. Resp. the sleeve nut lost it's grip, a bit of the socket broke off. Cable is lose in the antenna and has bad erratic connection.



and since those CB splitters are somewhat rare - I fixed it like this; which works well enough for now



Actually I only need an antenna wire with the right connector to fix the splitter. It's not even soldererd, it's just clmaped to the circuit board. So easy to change.

Cheers,
Jan

[TurboDieselWeasel]

And replacement arrived today, including the correct mounting bracket!



Awesome. Reception is better than it ever was.

Also bought an Europa 2000 - which is, IMO, one of the most decently beautifull line of Becker radios ever!



That's all. 933.000km on the clock.

Cheers,
Jan

[ozboy]

Nice work on the radio - but boy - get that shabby steering wheel fixed!!!

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Never!!

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Yesterday I took the car to somwhere south of Freiburg and collected these:



215/55 R16 tyres on some shabby 8x16" eight hole (read: a$$-hole ) alloys. The alloys will be thrown away for the sake of human kind, the tyres will go on the Coupé, with the 8x16" steels I recently bought. And it'll be a bit different this time - but more on that once it's finished.

From where I loaded them I headed straight to the garage, as there was some lift time available. P's 300TD, his brothers 32b TurboDiesel and my 300TD were waiting for some winter preparation. This time we went for FluidFilm NAS. The years before we used FluidFilm Liquid A. Which was sort of a waste, as at least half of it drips off... The thicker NAS is way more economic and will probably stay longer. I have a feeling that the Liquid A gets washed away pretty soon.

Only downer is that the NAS is very much not so liquid... *glob glob glob*



Though as soon as the can is a bit emptyer and the stuff can be shaked, it gets thinner (thixotropic liquid). And then - a liberal coat is applied to whereever neccesary...





^a little dripping occurs, but way less than with the thinner stuff. Nice. And yeah, I know that jacking point needs a repair - but not before spring...

And - well - this weekend I have cracked the 935.000km mark. Which means the car has now done 40.000km in slightly less than a year. And apart from that mysterious engine knock - it's been more or less free of big trouble.

Though there'S one thing that needs fixing before the next TÜV; I also did an oil chnage and discovered that I have a major oil leak. It look like either the oil pan is leaking or the injection pump main seal. Either are a PITA to replace. But with that oil leak - no TÜV. Good thing is: I have over a year of TÜV left. So I can sort that during summer, when hopefully the Coupé is back on the road (fingers crossed).

And that's it. Thanks for reading.

Cheers,
Jan

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Can you spot the latest addition to the car?



Should be easy to figure out...

Cheers,
Jan

[georgeb]

It's parked in a field?

[Carlosfandango.]

@turbodieselweasal is that a pair of headlight wipers I see added? Nice.
Why were you chucking those curse word Alloys? I quite like them. In fact I sourced a practically new set recently & swapped out my own 'kerbed' ones for them.
I do like steelies - but not with hubcaps. Just satin black paint :-)
On one of my other cars (discovery 200tdi) I've been offered loads of alloys but I've kept the steelies - so I get it but don't throw away those nice Mercedes alloys!

Well done on that Becker, it's a think of beauty. I'd absolutely love one!
Keep up the good work.

CFD

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Headlight wipers, correct, Sir!

I think they make the front end a little less "dull" to look at.



They'r not even connected, just for the looks 'Cause in real life - they just waste a lot of washing fluid without too much effect. But they look good.

Re: alloys; of course I didn't throw them away... I'm selling them. I'm not too eager on the 8-hole wheel design. I prefere the 15-hole "manhole covers", of which I have a 16" set. That's enough. Hmm. Counting; I have 6 sets of steels, and 1 set of alloys I don't know. I'm not an alloy type of guy I guess.

Cheers,
Jan

[village]

I was going to guess at the dent in the rear door.....

[Onne]

If only I could find a 16" set of 15 hole manhole covers...

[TurboDieselWeasel]

And even better: I payed 150€, got 3 bottles of wine with them and sold the old tyres for 80€ Best wheel-deal I ever had! Ok, they need blasting & painting, but still. Quite the bargain. And then I needed wheel bolts for them. And my heart stopped for s little moment. Bügger me!!! The bolts cost me more than the wheels in the end, about twice to be precise... (0.o)

That said; those prices on eBay are IMO up and beyond the moon...

And now for somehting usefull: Volvo 744 headlight wiper blades seem to be the same as the MB ones. Only the "carrier" is different, but swapping the rubbers over should be easy. They cost me 11€ the pair - whilst MB wants 40€ - per side! Blöödy hell...

Cheers,
Jan

[Battles]

Nov 10, 2015 18:09:50 GMT TurboDieselWeasel said:

And now for somehting usefull: Volvo 744 headlight wiper blades seem to be the same as the MB ones. Only the "carrier" is different, but swapping the rubbers over should be easy. They cost me 11€ the pair - whilst MB wants 40€ - per side! Blöödy hell...

Nice! Mine all have working wipers but either no rubbers or broken rubbers. I'll investigate Volvo rubber.

[melle]

Why not cut a (used) windscreen wiper rubber to length? Works perfectly for my Saabs.

[TurboDieselWeasel]

That would've been plan B. I was hoping the wipers had the same "streamlined" blade-carriers. And also because - reasons (I don't know...).

Anyway, I borrowed the pump timing check tool blinky-thingy from work, that's the plan for tomorrow - one of those rare free days The engine starts to throw smoke starting from about 3500-4000RPM. Might be late injection? The chain has no stretch at all, so next thing to check is the injection timing. And if this is spot-on as well - it's just a smokey old bastuard diesel

[melle]

I always go by plan B as it usually offers the best value for money.

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Money is worthless if it's not used