'88 W124 Ex- Berlin Taxi - suddenly a millionaire

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Today the car got a professional polish.







Pictures don't do it justice, cräppy light in the workshop...

It's never been this clean The paint is, for the most part, surprisingly good. It's quite the looker, I got talked to by several people at the fuel station. Light ivory - if clean - is actually a fantastic colour. I wouldn't have a car painted light ivory, but it's got something to it now that it's clean.

Very nice! almost too nice to drive it through winter...

Cheers,
Jan

[TurboDieselWeasel]

[Deleted]

^^
Elephant skin to go with the ivory?

[TurboDieselWeasel]

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Took some shots for a valuation, they'r sort of over-exposed though.







And after work yesterday, I had a free lift - so I splashed the underside with Fluid Film, a rust preservant based on wool wax. And mostly free of chemical solvents. It stays semi-liquid and doesn't harden. But needs refreshing every year.





Ran out of material after the rearend, front end needs doing when I have a lift again.

Current milage: 978.000

Cheers,
Jan

[veldhuijzen38]

Damn, that car still looks like new! I love this topic so much, keep up the good work!

[village]

Proper Taxi signs back on for the valuation photos?

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Actually, I left them on since the movie shoot

[trstarter]

Your '88 Berlin Taxi is perfect.
I have '88 W124 250D Taxi and I actually put on lot of work on it.
Its hard to find some specific MB taxi parts in Poland.
Maybe You have spare ones :
special glove box lid to carry the taxameter,
guide sign for taxi,
taxameter model like in catalogue ?
My MB don't have rare equipment, except pretty rare adjustable steering column.

I put some pics here how MB look like when i bought it, today is much better

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Hey! Welcome to Retro Rides!

Shoot a PM my way, I might have a spare Taxi glove box lid you can have. But I need to find it, it's tucked away somewhere. But your car is a very worthy recipient, I'd happily send it your way! There are very few Taxis left, and even less pre-facelift cars. Can't help with a roof sign or taxameter I'm afraid.

How many km does your car have?

Cheers,
Jan

[trstarter]

There are some bad condition ex taxis in Poland, but I've never seen pre facelift taxi here. Who knows how many km my car have really. 460 000 is on the counter but 4 sure this is no proper value. Car don't look like 1 460 000 also. 

Cheers

Andrew


PS. Check Your PM

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Hi!

Another part for a major renovation of the front suspension arrived...



250€ at the counter... But oh well. Better than not having one. The issue is that they wear out where the bushes sit. Dirt gets inside and eventually rubs through the coating and wears the sway bar until it starts to rattle or creak.

And since there are no aftermarket parts available... You have to bite the bullet. I'm actually lucky; some sway bars are well beyond 400€! And others are no longer available.

In other news;

since it's getting colder and the aux heater still works flawless - I had to do something about the noise. I think I mentioned it somewhere in the thread; the intake silencer is basically an alluminium tube with foam inside. The foam gets brittle and is swallowed by the blower which in turn is gunked up and dies. So after I swapped the blower, I removed the foam. Which made it a bit noisy, but safe.

Now the blower creates a rather loud, high pitched whine which is for the most part hardly bearable.

I got hold of a free intake silencer off a modern parking heater - so why not try it. Those modern heaters are much quieter.



And - wow! I didn't expect the difference to be this much!



Super boring video and the GoPro mic didn't really record the high pitched frequency, in reality the difference is even bigger.

Cheers,
Jan

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Jun 26, 2016 12:40:59 GMT TurboDieselWeasel said:

we payed a second visit to E's grey 300D.

Which was on the verge of becoming a part of the local flora as well...

And there's a follow up on the grey 300D, finally online:



It's been a while as you can see by the slightly warmer and more better weather... We plan on more frequent updates, though. as always, time is a precious and rare good. Watclikensubscrb.

Cheers,
Jan

[beefdogg]

Outstanding! Fantastic S124!

[TurboDieselWeasel]

So actually, I lied when I said this ...

Since I did something that totally transforms the way an estate car can be used. With this little modification, I suddenly isn't less practical than a sedan anymore. It hurts your head less and saves the life of countless brooms.

I replaced the struts for the tail gate. Which I should have done like - 2 years ago. Every warm period they worked OK-ish and I thought "well, I'll do it once it gets colder". And when I got colder I thought "well it's too cold to do this". Until recently. And - it's just incredibly fiddly to insert the two pins holding the struts & car together. It's very neat to have "invisible" hinges and invisible struts that don't get in the way of anything. But replacing them is - well, I know why I carried them around in the boot for 2 years (yes, I did!).



And whilst I was at it, I also replaced the broken hose for the rear screen washer. Which means I have rear view even if it doesn't rain. Which is nice.



Two "little" things that make this car a much better car. But I also discovered rust on the D-pillars and a lot more rust on the rear window frames than I was hoping for... There's still a lot of work to come.

Anyway; close to 983.000km and counting

Wish you all a couple of nice days!

Cheers,
Jan

[TurboDieselWeasel]

I hope you all are not too hung over and your 2017 will be a good one

Greetings from frosty, ice cold Sauerkrautania

[carat 3.6]

Happy new year Jan.

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Forgott to programm the aux heater, so thought - why not do a quick cold start video?



Starts fairly well, given the age & suspected milage of that engine. It's been a while since the car had a proper COLD start, without pre-heating.

Cheers,
Jan

[georgeb]

Pretty damn good.

Glad I dressed up warm to watch though!

[npp]

this guy's ahead of you - owned his 200D from new and has already done over 1m km: www.faz.net/aktuell/technik-motor/auto-verkehr/25-jahre-alter-mercedes-200-d-so-wird-man-millionaer-14609209.html

Anyway he's planning to sell it in 3 years so you'll have a chance to catch up!