New member, ancient W124

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

mj2k

Active Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2017
Messages
425
Location
Herts
Car
2000 Subaru Legacy GT (remapped to 300bhp)
Hi,

Guess I'd better formally introduce myself now I'll be getting an ancient W124 :)

I've owned a couple of 'classic' MBs in the past - a 190 2.0 and a W124 3.0 diesel estate.

I was planning to buy a good W210 in a few months, but as it happened whilst I was researching W210 potential issues, I stumbled across a barn find W124 which was asking to be rescued...

It's a 1990 W124 2.5 normally aspirated diesel with manual box (though it's got a 3.0 TD sticker on the boot for some reason), in black, with vinyl seat covers hiding it's no doubt horrendously shiny cloth seats.

It's been in storage for 4 years and has 315,000 on the clock, so theoretically has plenty of life left in it, though will presumably need a little recommissioning.

Plans for it are:

  1. Get it running and MOT it
  2. Check out the interior condition and fit leather if the cloth is done for
  3. It's had a few MOT advisories for it's worn propshaft so will def need to look at that
  4. Check if there's any hidden structural rust anywhere
  5. Once I know it's solid and driveable, look into fitting it with an OM606 turbodiesel
  6. Potentially uprate the gearbox, and maybe diff
  7. Enjoy!
 
Here it is:
6_zpsh2uypjwt.jpg


...And here's the interior I'll be fitting
s-l1600_zps8amcx90a.jpg
 
Just got to wait for it to turn up here now...
 
Welcome to the forum! You look well prepared What's the story with the car? and the replacement seats?
 
Welcome to the forum! You look well prepared What's the story with the car? and the replacement seats?

The story behind me getting it is slightly odd - I was trying to put someone off spending 10 grand on a 190 on an Alfa forum, I came across a video which reminded me how good the OM606 can be. So I decided to rescue a 300TD W210 in a few months, but whilst researching if it was possible to fit a manual 'box to a W210 (seemingly impossible) I came across a nice-looking w124 250d manual which has been sitting in a barn for 4 years because the owner lives abroad most of the time. It's a non-runner, presumably because the 4 year old diesel has congealed into gunge in the tank, but if it's anything more serious than that it'll give me a good excuse to do a '606 conversion ;)

As for the seats - not so odd. It's got cloth seats hidden beneath leather-look covers. I had a 190 with blue cloth interior and a W124 also with blue cloth, and both had worn through on the driver's bolster, had nasty stains, and had shiny bits where people's behinds had been parked. I'd vowed I wasn't going to put up with that sort of unpleasant 'ambience' detracting from the driving experience again, so when I came across that rather nice leather interior, I had to have it :cool:
 
Last edited:
MJ welcome to the forum .I know how you feel ,and i would love to do just the same as you, and pull the seats to replace with leather .And these look very clean . But the ones i have are clean with no damage to them .But its woth thinking about it .
 
MJ welcome to the forum .I know how you feel ,and i would love to do just the same as you, and pull the seats to replace with leather .And these look very clean . But the ones i have are clean with no damage to them .But its woth thinking about it .

Thanks :)

The leather is bound to get bolster wear just the same as the cloth, so if your cloth interior's still good it's probably best to keep the car as original as possible, esp as it's so easy to see what sort of interior your car should have through the MB service portal. OTOH once the leather does wear through it should be easier to find matching replacement panels, and it does feel nice.

Probably the best would be a car with an original MB-Tex interior, but I've never seen one in on a W124 in the UK.
 
Eh, have I inadvertently bought myself a Sportline interior there? What's the difference between a Sportline and normal leather front seats?

All the pictures I found when googling sportline and leather looked identical :confused:
 
Doesn't look like I've got the rights to create a 'project' thread, so might as well bung stuff here for the mo...

Still, depending on what I find, this could be the shortest project in history!

Guess I might as well explain my rationale behind buying the above W124 - it was a manual and it was £500. I figured, since the alloys were quite nice and it has an OM602, even if it did turn out to be a pile of rust I could rescue the 'box and pedals, and make my money back selling the other parts. So I only gave it a cursory glance before parting with my money, even though it was a non-runner and had been standing for 4 years.

It arrived today, and things didn't get off to an auspicious start - the brakes seized on the back of the tow lorry, so we had real trouble getting it into my garage. And then the replacement Nissens rad I'd bought turned out to be the wrong size when I got the original out, and when I went to put some charge into the flat battery I discovered I'd squashed my battery charger! Bit late to do much about it today, so I cracked on wth the other jobs.

Expecting fuel starvation I cracked open the unions at the filter, and surprisingly found plenty of diesel. So either the battery died only a couple of minutes before it fired, or there's an injection pump problem. Once I've got a decent battery I'll crack open the unions on top of the injectors and see if fuel's getting through to there.

Next I had a more careful look at the bodywork, and from the 'orange peel' on a couple of doors it's obvious they've been resprayed. Closer examination revealed rust bubbles starting around the n/s/r door handle and elsewhere, but the door bottoms seem to be intact so I'm guessing it's just poor paint preparation rather than anything more serious. Something to look at in the future...

Interior-wise I got quite a nice surprise when I cut off the tatty faux-leather seat covers - with the exception of the usual driver's bolster wear the seats and carpet are actually pretty good. So if I've got the time I might cut up the rear seat and remake the driver's bolster so I can sell the front seats; they're too good to bin TBH.

And final job for today (other than vainly wiggling the hand brake cables in the hope they freed off) was to look for serious underbody rust. And that does look like good news :) No obvious rot in the jacking points (though the sill covers would need to come off to be sure), and the rear subframe mounts seem intact. Presumably they'll need some welding, but they resisted a quick poke test so they can probably be added to the 'sort later' list. And whilst I was grovelling around underneath removing the rad, I couldn't see any rot in the panel beneath the headlights, or in the front subframe.

So early days yet, but it looks like it might only have cosmetic rust issues without any major structural rot, and may have mechanical issues but still have a pretty decent interior! So totally upside-down from how it should be :confused:
 
Well, that was encouraging :)

After 24 hours on charge the battery was still only giving out about 7.5v despite being new, so I pinched my Pug 306 battery (which is much smaller) to try and crank through the fuel...

10 seconds after I'd retightened the injector unions it made a splutter, after another 3 cranks it started and could be revved. It stayed running and I managed to make the car move under it's own power for the 1st time in 4 years :bannana:

So it was just airlocked, and I'm guessing the previous owner must have burned the battery out by cranking for too long without bleeding the airlock.

I've now ordered a new rad and battery, and with a fair wind, a bit of luck and a couple of hours work I should be able to drive it round the block.
 
Sounds like it is getting better and better for a non planned buy, good luck, look forwards to reading about progress
 

Yep, if you check out the end of my 'recommission' thread (which I'd rename 'decommission' if I could) you'll notice it was completely rust-ridden and the general opinion was it's not worth saving.

Hence why I'm breaking it (but keeping the gearbox) so I can try again with one that's actually saveable.

One choice photo to give you the general idea...

DSC_0169_zpsykweveul.jpg
 
Last edited:
Hmm, well, after finding out the W124 was basically rust held together by the paintwork (you should have seen inside that wheelarch!) I've found there's very little on the car which is worth keeping except the engine / box, so I'll probably stick the remains of it on Ebay with a £10 starting price.

Still, I think I've found my next victim - an OM606 TD W210 estate which has some MOT but unsurprisingly rough bodywork, so between the engine, box and interior I'll at least have 1/3 of the W124 I want to build at the end of this...

Assuming the W210 doesn't turn out to have a completely mangled engine of course :fail
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom