My R129 500SL Progress

[tommyboy40]

I would also buy a couple of foglight lenses from the dealer, they are only €21 and break regularly

 

[Doodle]

I suspect that depends on your road conditions and driving habits - I've only had one crack in 15 years. They're also considerably more than €21 for the earlier cars!

 

[C43AMG]

I remember when i had my W202 C43, i took it to Purslows for an A service to keep the stamps up to date. They told me it needed the plugs changed, i told them they had been changed. They said they couldn't stamp the book unless i could prove it had been done by a VAT registered garage, which it was. I got them to email the invoice and that was okay.

 

[MarkGolf997]

Thank you for the info guys, I don't mind taking a trip to Guildford, I plan on giving Croydon and Guildford a call for a quote just to see, if under £200 then I'll let them do the oil change for the sake of the stamp and someone else having a look over the car.

Didn't do too much this weekend, managed to get the direction of air inside the car working, I looked at the block under the dash which didn't appear to be receiving a vacuum so I went back to the distribution block under the bonnet, joined the vents directly to the vacuum feed and everything worked, so I knew the internals of the vent vacuum control were fine, I then added some silicon sealent to it as well as swapping the blower vacuum feed to a spare port, upon doing that, it sprung in to life! Woo, job done!

Under dash vacuum thing, noticed that some of the seals were dirty for some reason..

I then found the passenger seat headrest wasn't working, so I set about pulling the seat apart. I discovered a cog in the upper mechanism wasn't engaged, applied some aradite, waited a few hours and it's now fine!

motor drive itself was fine

Where the issue was

I then looked into the final and most frustrating issue, the passenger mirror!

I thought I would test the mirror itself, upon pulling it off, I noticed the connectors on the plug had corrosion on, I thought "bingo", cleaned them up, plugged it back in and doh, no luck!
Unplugged the mirror, tested it with a 12v test probe, all functions worked fine, I then put the mirror back on the car and that's when I noticed there is probably a bigger issue. Upon using the mirror control button, for any mirror, with the car OFF but door open, I noticed the lights on the roll bar and tyre chain button light up, at the same time, I can hear the OVP relay click and even something on the ABS pump!
With the car on, the mirror button doesn't work and the passenger mirror just constant tried to point upwards.

I was planning on pulling the door card off but I am now thinking that it is not going to be the common door loom issue because no matter what direction the mirror button is set to, I get this issue with all the relays clicking and button lights coming on..

I noticed that under the passenger seat is damp so I’m wondering if a bad earth could be the issue, the wire which goes to the mirror/steering module does lead off and go under the passenger carpet where it’s still wet.

I’m trying to find a wiring diagram but no joy! It has to be a simple short or poor earth fusing all of these things together, this one will be fun I'm sure!

 

[MarkGolf997]

I remember when i had my W202 C43, i took it to Purslows for an A service to keep the stamps up to date. They told me it needed the plugs changed, i told them they had been changed. They said they couldn't stamp the book unless i could prove it had been done by a VAT registered garage, which it was. I got them to email the invoice and that was okay.

No way, that's pretty extreme, I thought they would simply make a note of not changing the plugs or something..

 

[MarkGolf997]

You car is a fantastic Ruby Red, same as mine. One thing to remember is to never jump start them as it tends to kill the top control module. It's the best SL colour.View attachment 75838

What a beaut, the perfect wheels!! My arches really need filling but I love the original look, I have looked in to wheel spacers just to space the rears but they would need to be huge!

I will never jump the car thanks to all the horror stories, I do need to jump start another car and was going to do it from the SL but I think I best not even do that. lol

 

[grober]

Thank you for the info guys, I don't mind taking a trip to Guildford, I plan on giving Croydon and Guildford a call for a quote just to see, if under £200 then I'll let them do the oil change for the sake of the stamp and someone else having a look over the car.

Didn't do too much this weekend, managed to get the direction of air inside the car working, I looked at the block under the dash which didn't appear to be receiving a vacuum so I went back to the distribution block under the bonnet, joined the vents directly to the vacuum feed and everything worked, so I knew the internals of the vent vacuum control were fine, I then added some silicon sealent to it as well as swapping the blower vacuum feed to a spare port, upon doing that, it sprung in to life! Woo, job done!

Under dash vacuum thing, noticed that some of the seals were dirty for some reason..

I then found the passenger seat headrest wasn't working, so I set about pulling the seat apart. I discovered a cog in the upper mechanism wasn't engaged, applied some aradite, waited a few hours and it's now fine!

motor drive itself was fine

Where the issue was

I then looked into the final and most frustrating issue, the passenger mirror!

I thought I would test the mirror itself, upon pulling it off, I noticed the connectors on the plug had corrosion on, I thought "bingo", cleaned them up, plugged it back in and doh, no luck!
Unplugged the mirror, tested it with a 12v test probe, all functions worked fine, I then put the mirror back on the car and that's when I noticed there is probably a bigger issue. Upon using the mirror control button, for any mirror, with the car OFF but door open, I noticed the lights on the roll bar and tyre chain button light up, at the same time, I can hear the OVP relay click and even something on the ABS pump!
With the car on, the mirror button doesn't work and the passenger mirror just constant tried to point upwards.

I was planning on pulling the door card off but I am now thinking that it is not going to be the common door loom issue because no matter what direction the mirror button is set to, I get this issue with all the relays clicking and button lights coming on..

I noticed that under the passenger seat is damp so I’m wondering if a bad earth could be the issue, the wire which goes to the mirror/steering module does lead off and go under the passenger carpet where it’s still wet.

I’m trying to find a wiring diagram but no joy! It has to be a simple short or poor earth fusing all of these things together, this one will be fun I'm sure!

http://www.autolib.diakom.ru/CAR/Mercedes-Benz/1992/500E/SYSTEM WIRING DIAGRAMS/4350.pdf ???

 

[BTB 500]

What a beaut, the perfect wheels!! My arches really need filling but I love the original look, I have looked in to wheel spacers just to space the rears but they would need to be huge!

AMG wheels were always a factory option on the R129 ... I have the same staggered 2-piece rims on mine. If specced from new yours would have come with 3-piece ones.

 

[tommyboy40]

Mine are the staggered 2 piece AMG's and i think that they really finish the car off. I have the original wheels (and hardtop) in the garage. I do have a bit of a thing for the Ruby Red cars

 

[BTB 500]

The standard wheels for the R129 were 12-hole 16" alloys, with 8-hole 16" commonly selected as a cost option. Mine was on 17" Ceginus ("Evo") ones when I first got it.

I do think the staggered AMG 18s suit the car best though - you can't beat a 10" wide rear

 

[MrMotul]

Mark, I recently added a set of W220 AMG Alloys to my SL, and they only had 10mm spacers all round. The W210/R129 AMG Alloys have gone through the roof pricewise, so I thought these were a very good runner up at roughly half the asking price for the 210/129 Monoblocks

Very interesting thread btw ;-)

 

[BTB 500]

The W210/R129 AMG Alloys have gone through the roof pricewise

The 2-piece 18" AMGs have always been expensive - I paid £1700 for mine (rims only) eight years ago. M-B stopped making them some time back. There are some decent replicas out there though, which you see quite often on R129s. Those are 1-piece with dummy bolt heads round the rim (and generally no AMG markings).

 

[tommyboy40]

I was very lucky to pay €900 for mine and they have the R129 part number. The tyres cost as much!

 

[BTB 500]

You definitely got a bargain there!

 

[tommyboy40]

The BBS's i have on the W124 were 20years old but still in boxes for €400. 4 x Pirellis cost me €500

 

[MarkGolf997]

Thanks Grober, diagram looks a lil different to the wiring I saw however, doh!

Love the coupe, I would like the AMG splits, as a kid I always wanted Azev A’s but not for this colour combo. If a set of mono blocks come up for good money I could be interested but I do like the original 8 hole look, the rears just need spacing 10-15mm.
When you fitted spacers, I take it you used extended bolts? The wheel bolts on my 8 holes are very weird, really tall heads, when I have looked up extended bolts they are not the same design.

Wheels:spacers need to be my last thought at the mo, I am trying to get to the bottom of some electrical gremlins, the passenger mirror having a mind of its own when I have the module plugged in with ignition/engine on and when trying to operate anything using the mirror switch, other button lights and relays click and light up, headlight flasher not working when you pull the stalk(stalk tested ok) and fog light now not coming on after poking around in the relay box, I suspect something is loose so will investigate next chance.
Oh and just to finish off, the bulb warning light comes on when switching just the sidelights on, it always did since my ownership, I replaced the front and rear bulbs for new ones but the warning still comes on when turning them on, I assume it is related to just these bulbs and not something else in the system which isn’t on.

I suspect another blown module or relay but can’t find much info, these are the last problems I have now. When looking at R129s relays/modules online, there doesn’t appear to be many more I can change other than a light control relay but not sure what this is actually controlling.

Will post pics of what I found last night when I get to a PC. On phone at the mo.

 

[Doodle]

The wheel bolts on my 8 holes are very weird, really tall heads, when I have looked up extended bolts they are not the same design.

Look like that? I would consider changing those, they like to shear on the extended shank.

 

[BTB 500]

I have a set of the M-B bolts with stainless steel end caps on my car - worth keeping any eye out for as they were discontinued years ago.

 

[MarkGolf997]

Those are the bolts although as mentioned, mine gave the chrome end caps which I’ve re-polished

The only replacement bolts I can find don’t have a head so they will sit deep within the lug holes of the wheels.. I did think that about the sheering when one of them was so tight i had to stand on the breaker bar!

 

[Doodle]

Yes, that was the defined replacement by MB. To be fair they're probably ok so long as nobody goes near them with an impact driver, but if they do shear it's a serious pain to sort out.