My R129 500SL Progress

[MarkGolf997]

Cheer Grober, I've already ordered a new OVP but I'll investigate the old one, always like to know what the problem was, I'm going to look into the vacuum system, I've found out where I need to look so fingers crossed.

Thanks Bill, it is rather long, can't say I even noticed but it will disappear soon, I plan on fitting a DAB headunit so bye bye analogue and no more long aerial.

Thanks Doodle, indicators are working fine, I'm going to set the wipers to position 1 and wiggle the N10, if no good I'll take a look at the relay you mention and check that out with some contact cleaner to hand. I have come across some relays already which needed a tap.

I dont suppose the mirrors have their own relay other than the module under the passenger footwell? It's as if something is stuck on for the passenger mirror, as grober mention, weak door loom at the hinge, a bridge cable could cause what I'm seeing or if relay driven, a stuck relay..

 

[Darrell]

Looking very nice indeed.

That radio antenna seems extremely long?!

Looks like a bloody pole vault!!

 

[gramey]

Just read this from the start, absolutely love the colour, I appreciate you say you like your silver and black cars but that's a nice shade of red and you've done a fantastic job of knocking it into shape. Good luck with the rust repair, I replaced both front wings on my R129 when I had it with new from Mercedes Benz, how true it is I don't know but I was told the other day they've stopped supplying wings for the R129. Hopefully a good bodywork guy can rescue what you have if they're not too bad, I shall keep watching with interest and envy.

 

[horatio]

The colours are superb! They restored similar wooden trim on the G Wagen wheeler dealers episode.

 

[MarkGolf997]

Thanks guys. The colours have really grown on me, especially since being cleaned, the car looks special.

I checked the rear of the front wing where the rust is and it's solid so my body guy should have no issues with a decent repair to the wing thankfully. I'm going to be cleaning the inner arches of the car this weekend so I'll coat them with waxoyl once done.

I've google a few wood work places, so I'm going to send some emails to them after I get a picture of the panel with the key fob thingy removed, it's not wired up so it needs to go!

I'll have some more updates next week.

Until then, I've loved driving this thing, I arrive everywhere feeling relaxed, so much so, I'm still half asleep when I arrive at work, normally I'm wide awake thanks to stiff suspension and loud noises. It certainly has some pace too, on a dual carriage way late last night, I left a civic type r of some variety in my dust, all with total ease and comfort. Brilliant!

 

[C43AMG]

What amazes me with the SL's in this country, very few have Heated Seats I was at the Essen Classic Car Show last week and all the SL's had Heated Seats, obviously all left hand drives, you would think with our wonderful weather the owners would have ticked that option

 

[BTB 500]

What amazes me with the SL's in this country, very few have Heated Seats

Yes, agreed. It was only £365 as a factory option on the 1997 price list - seems crazy not to have had it on a convertible costing £80k plus. My car had ADS selected at a cost over over £3,500 but no heated seats

I looked at having them retro-fitted but the cost is prohibitive, if you want it to be OEM. I was quoted around £1,500 a couple of years ago.

 

[MarkGolf997]

Heated seats would have been nice but the heaters seem to get warm enough to not worry about the lack of bum warmers. Not that I'll be removing the hard top too often, what a lump that is!

I didn’t have as much free time as I would have liked over the bank holiday weekend but with the time that I had, I got some jobs on the list ticked off.

Popped to Mercedes Epsom to pick up my sun visor trims.

Old broken ones on both sides

New ones, took around 20 mins to fit both sides.

The wiper covers looked really tired

Gtechniq C4 renews the pieces for a permanent shine

First off was to get speed 1 and 2 working on the wipers, these have been intermittent, sometimes never working at all, sometimes working fine but stopping mid sweep. I removed the module and gave the contacts a good blast of component cleaner, there was a build up of some black stuff on the contacts of the relays. Refitted and woohoo, a fully working wiper. I need to give it a good run as it could just be chance that they worked this time around.

Next up was something I love to do on my cars, clean the inner arches and belly of the car.

Seems pretty crazy but I just like a clean under carriage and not carrying years of crud build up under the car, makes it nice when it comes to working on things also. I didn’t go too crazy as it was raining at this point and I was soaked but managed to get 80% of the crud off, de-tar some areas and give the inner arches and belly of the car a scrub using Tardis to remove tar, G101 as a cleaner and snowfoam just to make brushing a bit easier. Finally a rinse! Normally I would dress and protect the plastics and metal work with Aerospace 303 and Chemical guys bare bones but as I was trying to be a bit quick and not waiting around for things to dry, I’ll do this when I have a second stab at cleaning the arches further.

I’ve never seen tar build up like this, on the drivers front and rear arch, this prved to be hard work as it was soooo thick!! Tardis wasn’t removing it so in the end I had to use boiling water and a brush!

This is the arch washed!! HUGE tar build up with ingrained dirt.

Getting there

Done – Need to remove it from the arch liner now but thankfully it just flakes off of here for some reason. phew

Better but still needs work

Rears were much easier

Rear floor

Tools for the underside

 

[MarkGolf997]

Insides of the wheels

Kind of rushed these as I was pretty soaked by this point and just wanted to button the car back up.

Then gave the car a quick wash and finished with Korea Fireball Hydrophobic snow foam, this stuff is amazing!! Leaves a nano layer which gives the car a just waxed looked and beads like you’ve never seen before!

That was that, another day, I realigned the glove box lid as that used to really annoy me and got around to replacing the bulb in the temperature display! A really satisfying job!

That lock is going to get some attention soon! I can’t leave that looking so scruffy

After removing the dials, I got to clean the insides of the binnacle, some has had this off before or this dust has just got in here somehow.

Blown bulb on the temperature display

Working and clean!

 

[chrisk2010]

Looking great !

Re the wiper if it does get stuck again try greasing the chrome rods under the cover at the base of the arm.

My w202 used to get stuck mid sweep when i first bought it so i cleaned them up with some autosol and greased them and never had the problem again.

 

[horatio]

Coming along nicely

As much as we whinge about the dealers, it's amazing that you can still get new trim pieces in an unusual colour for a nearly 30 year old car!

It's well worth giving the underside a clean, I'm convinced it's the best way to prevent rust. I've given the underside of my 190 a jetwash after every winter and it's totally solid under there.

 

[BTB 500]

Great progress - it's really coming along!

 

[Doodle]

First off was to get speed 1 and 2 working on the wipers, these have been intermittent, sometimes never working at all, sometimes working fine but stopping mid sweep. I removed the module and gave the contacts a good blast of component cleaner, there was a build up of some black stuff on the contacts of the relays. Refitted and woohoo, a fully working wiper. I need to give it a good run as it could just be chance that they worked this time around.

Marvellous, as I suspected. I find that it usually last for a year or so before happening again, although I don't bother sealing the relay afterwards so it might go for longer if one did.

 

[MarkGolf997]

Thanks guys!

I'll take a look at the wiper mech, I can imagine the joints need a re-grease either way!

The underside is often overlooked on cars, I love taking my cars for MOT's and getting the 'wow that's clean' comment. But it certainly helps to not be carrying around all the crap that sticks, not to mention the build up on the arch lips!!! I wish I caught it all in a bucket to show just how much collects up there, I pulled back the inner arch liners to waxoyl behind the front wings, I was expecting serious rust on the drivers side since this is the side showing surface rust under the paint but it was clean, even so I gave it some waxoyl to prevent anything starting there in future.

I was surprised to find the dealers had the parts, cheaper than second hand ones on eBay too!! I must say, the parts I've bought from the dealer have been very well priced and in stock or available next day (even those odd colour sun visor trims!!). The only part which hasn't been available was the top washer for the aerial and the under bonnet pad was £150, so I opted for an aftermarket one for £76 from german ebay.
There is no need to guess what colour trim you need, as they enter you reg into the parts system, it knows what colour trim your car is, very helpful!! I was expecting incorrect coloured trims!

Won't be much this week, just expecting OVP relay to arrive along with drive belt and fan clutch. Currently the fan revs with the engine so you can't actually hear the engine sound when revving, a big clue to a dead viscous unit.

 

[MarkGolf997]

Marvellous, as I suspected. I find that it usually last for a year or so before happening again, although I don't bother sealing the relay afterwards so it might go for longer if one did.

That will do, I haven't resealed as yet, a bit of silicon wont hurt and wont stop me from unsealing it again. If it plays up again, I may give the contacts a wipe with some very fine sandpaper to ensure they're clean, I only blasted them and didn't touch them this time around. Cheers!!


I do want to work out why my clock works when the car is off but as soon as the car has ignition, it doesn't work, you just see the arm twitch now and then.. I am wondering if it is some how linked to my crazy passenger mirror.

 

[chrisk2010]

The underside is often overlooked on cars, I love taking my cars for MOT's and getting the 'wow that's clean' comment.

My brother in law recently took my old 2003 golf (now his) in for an MOT biting his finger nails at what they may find.

He was adorned with coisants and coffee when they started going over it commenting it was the cleanest they'd seen in a while and smelt like cherries. Even when they lifted it they were greated with a cleaned and treated chassis.

He is still happy they topped up the oil for him for free and gave him an extra litre to keep in the car..... I wasn't very happy that he hadn't checked the oil !

 

[MarkGolf997]

It certainly helps, at least it shows you care about the car so it makes the testers careful too.


Drove the car for first time since fitting the dials back and my clock is working!!! Woohooo!

Wipers weren't working on speed 1 and 2 to start with though

 

[MarkGolf997]

Wipers resolved, opened the unit up again and scratched the contact, there was a layer of something on there..

Working on all speeds for a constant 20 min drive just now

 

[MarkGolf997]

Got some repair jobs done last night.

New OVP relay to replace the faulty old one, no pics as I did that quickly and forgot.

New viscous unit and belt, this was a really easy job!! Much easier than any other car where I have done similar, I would say you can be done within 30 minutes, start to finish. I only spent longer as I was cleaning while I had more room.

Pull the various trims off from the rad, 8mm hex to undo the viscous unit (bracing the other side to stop it turning the pulley was a slight pain), undo the tensioner and pull belt off, unbolt viscous from fan and then go about refitting.

I love having the bonnet like this, such a great idea

Old one, bit grubby but not entirely convinced that it did spit the oil out, either way, very old and never changed the fan speed so must be dead.

Old belt, I really don’t know how the previous owner let the belt come this far, long strips were missing!!

No pics as not much to show but new ones all fitted and engine is now sounding better with a fresh, correctly tensioned belt and not such a loud fan noise from the previous locked fan.

Next up, seat module which should arrive from the US tomorrow and then I’m not sure, nearly through my list and ready to enjoy a complete car!

New PVC windows for the soft top and rust repair are the only things now. Hoping to get the rust done while I’m on holiday at the end of the month and the windows 1 Saturday just after I’m back.

Oh and a service by a specialist for the sake of a stamp, could do it myself but I feel any future buyers would prefer a stamped book.

 

[MarkGolf997]

On the subject of servicing, I seem to be having extreme difficulty with anyone giving me a quote for servicing levels for the car. Mercedes, Star Tec and another apparently specialist.. What kind of money are you guys paying for the basic/major servicing excluding extras?