'88 W124 Ex- Berlin Taxi - suddenly a millionaire

[TurboDieselWeasel]

That's a rather unusual Taxi Good find!

Today I received a letter from the first owner who was happy to hear his old car is in good hands. The car's milage is as it is on the odometer; 902.000km as of lately - not 1.900.000km. Almost dissapointing The engine got replaced at 460.000km after a garage had a little misshap. The gearbox had been replaced twice and reconditioned twice. That's why it all looks so remarcably clean

I'll call him soon to get to know more, he's very busy and still in the Taxi buiseness

Anyway, I'm very glad and happy to know that there's someone willing to tell me more about this car!!

Cheers,
Jan

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Finally!

[3liter]

Jan 28, 2015 20:53:16 GMT TurboDieselWeasel said:

Finally!

The fuel reserve lamp. How big your fuel tank must be. 3 Months with one tank? Or are you driving a lot less than you are telling us?

[TurboDieselWeasel]

No. It's just so damn economical. Beats any Mongeo TDDI! 332.32MPG or 0.85l/100km

[skoda_norman]

Great thread! Just read it from page 1. Your enthusiasm for the unloved taxi range is brilliant. Enjoyed that; thanks.

[TurboDieselWeasel]

So - every time something new. Today: ABS error. The ABS warning light stood on immediately after the ignition was turned on. So - a major issue with power supply to the ABS. First suspect: the well kknown over-voltage protection relais. Which in 90% of all cases is accused - but not the culprit. As it was in this case.

So - maybe a major flaw with the wheel sensors? Nope. All within spec.



This left only one more possibility of which I've read in the workshop manual. But never have heard of in real-life. But - I knew about this. Remove ABS unit cover...



...change the silver relais for a spare one. Et voilá: ABS working again

The rotten breaker contact wasn't even the issue. The coil was simply broken.



I've never kept the ABS units, but I've always pulled the relais - in case of "you-never-know".

Cheers,
Jan

[s123]

Fantastic Jan, love your cars and your knowledge to keep them running. Fascinating!

[rr69h]

Ta, I've had the very same relay go wrong on the W126. Good thing you've got a spare!

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Well and today a headlight died. Which was rectified with wiggling the fuse a bit... Tiume for a set of new fuses, me thinks. Old electrics - never boring

---

Our very own Mr. Oldbus sent me a a rather long cardboard box the other day. I tip my hat to you - thanks a lot!!

It contained a little magic box. Which is temporarily installed like this for now:



And connects to a combined radio/cb radio antenna - like Taxis need one.



But let's face it - this one is a little short and chubby. And we all know, if there's one thing it's antennas that can't be long enough

By pure coincidence, the rather long carboard box contained a much longer antenna...



Mmmmh - yepp! That'll do it!

FM Reception is more or less the same with both antennas (they'r screw-on fixed antennas). And much better than with the old telescopic antenna. And the long one is swinging a bit - I remember this from Taxis when I was a kid. And this made me think - it's a reaaaly long time ago when I last saw a car with a LONG antenna that was jiggling in the wind...

Cheers,
Jan

[Oldbus]

Glad to see my old junk being put to some proper use mate

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Very good junk, Dave!

And today I took a bit of sheet metal and made these:



More on that tomorrow...

Cheers,
Jan

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Today: I failed. Sometimes you just have to accept defeat and surrender...

This landed a few days ago on my door step...



...which contained a BIG piece of THICK steel. And to make it worse, it had been dipped in a zinc immersion bath which added a HEAVY coat of zinc. Or in other words: it's a fooking bl00dy heavy piece of steel sump guard. A very rare piece, I probably payed more then what's sensible for it...



To make it even heavyer I gave it a coat of stone chip & paint on the underside...



Put on two captive nut clip thingys...



...and discovered a hole that's not supposed to be where it is:



So broke out the welder and put a bit of plate on and then I had to watch paint dry. Which took ages with about 6°C+. To accelerate things, I put up the heat gun and went inside to have a coffee.



So much for the succesfull part of the day. The less succesfull part comes now. Failing to install the sumpguard. It was just way too heavy to hold it up with one hand and try to bolt it on...



...but even with the help of the gearbox jack - it didn't align. Imagine me lieing under the car wrestling with 200kg of steel and cursing my right nut off... The damn thing just didn't want to slide into place. So fcuk it I thought.

And went to put on the old plastic cladding - but wait a minute...



What the...? When I put this in place when the car was new it lined up perfectly! And then I remembered that awefull noise from a parking misshap (a big chunk of concrete I could not see) a couple of weeks back. I thought it was just damage to some plastic bits - maybe not... Anyway; the steel equivalent has the same cut-out for the radiator support (the round pipe).

Some blows with the opinion-amplifier and it was back where it belonged.



But then it was getting cold & dark - so next try tomorrow... If I'm strong enough to get it up...

Right now I'm more like "do I realy need that fooking thing!?" - the awnser is obviously yes... If it had allready been in place some weeks back, it would fit perfectly now Money well spent? I don't know... 'Cause; if I wouldn't have the sumpguard, the parking damage wouldn't be a problem in the first place... Vicious circle etc.

Cheers,
Jan

[tdk]

Fantastic! Thanks for the updates. Sieht gut aus*

*10 years since I last spoke German, sadly.

[TurboDieselWeasel]

I bet your german was better than my unintelligible jabbering

Back on topic - I gave one last try today... First; off with le bumpeur - this made things a lot easyer.



It was not neccesary, since I then found the actuall issue; the hoop on the sump guard was bent as well! After I re-bent it with a long pipe, it went on like a glove



And then the big moment; will the drain plug be in the correct position? I've read about non-aligning drain plugs & angle grinders before, but i looks like I got the right sump guard for my engine:



There's even a catch tray next to the opening to deflect the stream of oil down the opening - very clever! The rubber cover for this drain opening is still on it's way, I sourced on in the UK since it's NLA from MB's...

And the coolant drain is also taken care off!



and now I can finally explain why I made up those two discs - I could have bought them from MB's - ut at 37€ per piece I thought I'm better off making my own. 74€ for two tin discs is not steep, that's fooking vertical!!



That's it. One more totaly unneccesary addition to the car that's probably going to give me a severe headache if I drop a nut or tool down the engine bay...

Cheers,
Jan

[Battles]

That's a huge piece of metal!

[joostvdw]

At least you would know you've dropped something by the satisfying *thump*

[65mustang]

Always great to see an update in this thread ! Nothing beter than make a heavy car heavier with a big piece of iron under it

[TurboDieselWeasel]

A part of it is made off rubber!?

[THE_Liam]

Read the first 4 pages of this, will finish the rest on Sunday. Just bought one of these beasts myself, definitely the slowest car I've ever owned. Feel better about mine having 251k now I've seen the mileage on yours!

[TurboDieselWeasel]

Haha - that's not even half the milage! Though mine is on the 2nd engine and 2nd transmission with 2nd rebuild... Engine failed after a garage killed it, and the gearbox - well, I guess that's just down to the city-traffic & Taxi usage...

Headlight wipers are a must IMO, they sort off make the front end a little less dull...