Somebody
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2013
- Messages
- 78
- Car
- 500SEC
Why is it that I always get the strange cars?
A relaxing trip to the vintage car auctions, looking around thinking no more exotics, I am sick of cars that aint nobody know nothing about. That Benz caught my eye, so Im thinking, hmm, its a Benz, that means its practically like a Volkswagen Bug, in the way that there are thousands of car nerds that know every single little detail about it.
Now I find out that I done bought the only Benz that nobody has ever heard of. With less than 200,000 produced to begin with, and seemingly no info what so ever to be found about them, I only just worked out how to start the damn thing.
So, has anybody on this forum actually ever owned or driven one of these? I got a few questions:
1) The whole foot parking brake in a stick-shift car thing? Err...how? I don't have that many feet! I mean, stick-shift is hard enough when you are used to autos, but with a foot parking brake too? Thats just sadistic.
2) Starting/glow plugs. So on my car, the kill switch has 4 positions. Off, run, glowplugs and starter. Glowplugs and starter are both spring-loaded (obviously the start position always is on all cars), so you have to physically hold the switch partially pulled out to operate the glow plugs. Then pull it even harder to operate the starter. Is my switch broken, or is it supposed to be like that?
And while we are talking about glowplugs, is there supposed to be some kind of lamp to tell you they are on? Because right now, the only way to tell if you pull the kill switch out enough to operate the glowplugs is that the generator lamp dims slightly because of the heavy current draw by the glowplugs. Im sure there is supposed to be a lamp or something somewhere, but on mine it obviously aint working.
And finally, is there some kind of glowplug timer? Or do you just hold the kill switch and count your favourite number of potatoes in your head, depending on temperature?
3) Stuff on the dash. The fuses are all rotted away on mine so almost nothing works, so I cant just go turn things on and see what happens yet till I get a batch of Euro fuses. I have two switches which I am not sure what they do. Twisty switch with green dot to the left, and plain twist black switch to the right of the wheel. Should have taken photos but I forgot, might do a bit later.
4) weird little pepper-pot looking structure right above the steering wheel. Is it a beeper for when you left your lights on or something? It doesn't seem to do anything, and I can't get to the back of the dash to see what its connected to yet.
So, any current or ex 115 / 114 owners who can help me out?
A relaxing trip to the vintage car auctions, looking around thinking no more exotics, I am sick of cars that aint nobody know nothing about. That Benz caught my eye, so Im thinking, hmm, its a Benz, that means its practically like a Volkswagen Bug, in the way that there are thousands of car nerds that know every single little detail about it.
Now I find out that I done bought the only Benz that nobody has ever heard of. With less than 200,000 produced to begin with, and seemingly no info what so ever to be found about them, I only just worked out how to start the damn thing.
So, has anybody on this forum actually ever owned or driven one of these? I got a few questions:
1) The whole foot parking brake in a stick-shift car thing? Err...how? I don't have that many feet! I mean, stick-shift is hard enough when you are used to autos, but with a foot parking brake too? Thats just sadistic.
2) Starting/glow plugs. So on my car, the kill switch has 4 positions. Off, run, glowplugs and starter. Glowplugs and starter are both spring-loaded (obviously the start position always is on all cars), so you have to physically hold the switch partially pulled out to operate the glow plugs. Then pull it even harder to operate the starter. Is my switch broken, or is it supposed to be like that?
And while we are talking about glowplugs, is there supposed to be some kind of lamp to tell you they are on? Because right now, the only way to tell if you pull the kill switch out enough to operate the glowplugs is that the generator lamp dims slightly because of the heavy current draw by the glowplugs. Im sure there is supposed to be a lamp or something somewhere, but on mine it obviously aint working.
And finally, is there some kind of glowplug timer? Or do you just hold the kill switch and count your favourite number of potatoes in your head, depending on temperature?
3) Stuff on the dash. The fuses are all rotted away on mine so almost nothing works, so I cant just go turn things on and see what happens yet till I get a batch of Euro fuses. I have two switches which I am not sure what they do. Twisty switch with green dot to the left, and plain twist black switch to the right of the wheel. Should have taken photos but I forgot, might do a bit later.
4) weird little pepper-pot looking structure right above the steering wheel. Is it a beeper for when you left your lights on or something? It doesn't seem to do anything, and I can't get to the back of the dash to see what its connected to yet.
So, any current or ex 115 / 114 owners who can help me out?