New owner need good local mechanic

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

Ruby&JoW123

New Member
Joined
Jul 27, 2010
Messages
5
Location
East Sussex
Car
MB 230E W123
Good day all,
Following my desire to be poor and happy rather than poor and unhappy, I parted with my previous old banger (10yr old Peugeot 306) and rather than spending my money on another clapped out modern car I bought my 1982 230CE W123 in Nov 2009. I love classic cars and driving and not knowing too much about mechanics and car maintenance in general my thinking was that here is a car with good sound mechanics, simple engineering compared to modern cars. So far the ride has been great! This is a beautiful car, owned by the same owner for 25 years, then two more owners, one of whom thought it was a good idea to lower the suspension, which I had restored straight away. Unfortunately this owner also lost the entire history of paperwork grr and I eventually bought the car from a dealer who had owned and driven it himself for a year.
The car has a few issues that my boyfriend (he's a jag lover!) and I have enthusiastically been trying to identify and are trying to manage but I do need to find a good independent (& not too expensive) local-ish mb mechanic quite soon.
Can anybody help? I live in East Sussex, boyfriend lives in Thanet.
The 2 main issues that we need to address immediately are:
driverside front wheel has a camber on it - to the point that after a drive to Devon last week, checked the tyre and it was scarily worn to the metal on the inside edge. When we changed the wheel it now has an even more pronounced camber and this tyre is already wearing.
Sorry for the complete beginner speak, but when we looked at the wheel fitting, it looks like the track(tyre?) rod end bush is completely worn - we could see metal - So I need to find someone who can change these and also fix the camber issue (looking at the car from the front the top of the wheel is leaning in, the base leans out).

Water getting into passenger footwells front and back: We have located the main point of entry and it looks like the passenger side sunroof drainage pipe (?) has failed. Water runs into the drainage hole and then pours inside the car at the top front corner above the front corner of the front passenger door. We have checked the pipe is not blocked by inserting a foot long plastic tie down it. We also found rust where we think the drainage channel has a hole in it. We need to fix this before 'rainy' season, lol!

I have read lots of your threads in these forums and appreciate that it is defo not a case of taking the car to a 'tyre' place to have them check the tracking and balance etc so I decided to ask for your advice and recommendation as we would like to find a good and enthusiastic mb mechanic who we can ask to fix the wheel issue and hopefully go on to ask them to work with us on the water ingress and for general servicing for as long as we have the car (a good many years I hope).

Can anyone also recommend what manuals etc are out there for this model that are worth trying to get hold of?

Sorry for such a long post, there are further issues but this post is long enough as it is!
Many thanks for any help and advice you can give. Jo
 
Welcome. Is Portsmouth anywhere near? If so, BlackC55 at PCS (who is a member on here) is your man as attested by many

HTH

Steve "geographically challenged"
 
He's actually in Horndean, just North of Portsmouth on the A3, so from East Sussex it's not a bad run along the A27/M27 - done it many times when we lived just north of Hastings and went to visit friends in Southampton. You can also take the scenic route A272 via Midhurst to pick up the A3 south at Petersfield - not quite as quick as the A27 but much nicer run.

If we still lived there, I'd be tempted myself, but we're now near Ashford so I go to Class Cars at Wingham, just east of Canterbury.
 
Hey Steve & Chris, Many thanks, I will seriously bear PCS in mind for long term care. We actually drove past Horndean on Friday on our way home! But as my other half, Matt lives in Ramsgate I'll probably try Class Cars to get the immediate problem of the front wheel alignment looked at.
Thanks muchly, it's really nice to get helpful responses! :)
I will get a pic of the car (Ruby!) on here soon, just can't figure it out yet! Jo
 
I would be happy to help in the future and your car has the same name as my 4 month old duaghter!
 
Ah Bless ya! Ruby is a beautiful name. I have never, ever, ever, ever named a car, ever! It's such a 'bird' thing to do and I'm such a tomboy lol! But with the number plate and it's such a beautiful car you'll see why (when I can work out how to upload the pic). I have to take the Merc back to Matt this week as his Jag xjr which we are selling, desperately needs new brake pads (they've baked on - big oops) so have to get that fixed next week down in Eastbourne, then I'll be in a better position to have the Merc for a while. He uses the Merc at the mo as it is more economical of the two cars and I am not working at the mo (slipped disc - it's easier to drive the auto xjr). Actually I haven't driven my car properly for a couple of months now - can't get Matt to relinquish it! But will check out your website and give you a call probably later this week so we can chat if that's ok. Thanks again.
 
Ah Bless ya! Ruby is a beautiful name. I have never, ever, ever, ever named a car, ever! It's such a 'bird' thing to do and I'm such a tomboy lol! But with the number plate and it's such a beautiful car you'll see why (when I can work out how to upload the pic). I have to take the Merc back to Matt this week as his Jag xjr which we are selling, desperately needs new brake pads (they've baked on - big oops) so have to get that fixed next week down in Eastbourne, then I'll be in a better position to have the Merc for a while. He uses the Merc at the mo as it is more economical of the two cars and I am not working at the mo (slipped disc - it's easier to drive the auto xjr). Actually I haven't driven my car properly for a couple of months now - can't get Matt to relinquish it! But will check out your website and give you a call probably later this week so we can chat if that's ok. Thanks again.

No problem. BTW we have a day off friday. Speak soon
 
Yep trapperjohn, Ruby truly is a great car, it's been so well looked after I'm really enjoying learning mechanics on this car (don't worry I don't trust myself to do anything yet, just learning all the time n taking it all on board n getting the pros to do the 'science' bit). I'm determined to keep it in fine shape!
 
Thanks BlackC55, I'll give you a bell tomorrow.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom