W124 repair suggestion

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Crazymind

New Member
Joined
Dec 16, 2020
Messages
16
Location
Glasgow
Car
W124 300D
Hi folks, my first w124 estate 1996, not my first young timer. A little bit of work to make it shine.
All 4 jacking point need welding, nothing structural.
Rear arch inside is very bubbly. Guess another patch there is needed.
Some water accumulates at the back of the driver seat, at the bolt near B pillar. Hard to trace.
Rear boot Windows have little rust, dripping very little water inside, enough to stop aerial working.
Other than that it appears mechanically sound and body is perfect. Interior almost perfect, everything works.
Shall I live with all of this or spend some money to repair? Car is garaged and used very little.
Any idea of how much would all the repair be?
 
The water you've found behind the drivers seat normally get's in via the estate's rear windows, due to the way the cable ducts run under the carpets it pools in front of the rear seats. The only way to sort this properly is to remove the windows, repair the frames and refit.

Lift up the rear seat and on the drivers side you will find the central locking pump encased in a foam block, lift out the foam and see if there is corrosion under there. That's a good indication of what shape the subframe mounts are in under the car.

The jacking points are not too hard to repair, the tube itself will be fine so just fit your repair section around it. They are an mot fail so if your keeping the car they will need doing.

Another good spot is where the throttle pedal mounts to the floor, I've seen a few where it just rots away.
 
Great, I was ready to strip half of the car to find where the water comes:)
You have saved me a lot of work!

went to the garage to check the central locking area: all good no sign of rust.

Cheched as well the mount under the throttle pedal, little bit surface rust and bit dump around. There is a crack on that material covering the floor panels and some factory holes let dump in.

jacking points, need to find a real welder not a butcher. If I can’t find one I’ll wait.
Anybody Glasgow area can refer someone good?

Thanks carat very precious answer!
 
Before spending money repairing one section of rust have a REALLY good look around the rest of the car esp underneath. The jacking points are easy to do. Check the area where the front rear subframe bushes attach to the chassis - you may need to have a good poke around to find the real state - the problem is that the corrosion is happening underneath the factory underseal and can be difficult to see. Check inside the side panels in the rear load area; most are rusty and it will be contributing to the crusty wheelarch. As said the rearmost windows leak at the bottom front corner - there will be a rust hole there. The front inner wings rust behind the headlights; the front wings have multiple mud traps designed in. The brake lines and sls pipes rust and can get expensive. I would suggest establishing the complete repairs needed or it may become a money pit - depends on the state of the rest of it really. Ideally take it for an inspection by someone who knows the cars.
 
When doing the rear side widow frames its worth replacing the seal. The corrosion started for a reason - the seal has probably failed resulting in water ingress. They are still available from MB. Ours had the leak but no corrosion.
Agree that jacking points are usually just cosmetic although sometimes it can be more severe. The rear subframe mounts are the main weakness and quite hard to repair. You need someone who knows what they are doing. Ours looked fine but when the subframe was removed for fitting new brake/SLS pipes, bushes etc there was a small amount of corrosion. No welding needed but it was there.
If its a long term keeper then its worth getting it inspected by someone used to dealing with 124s. It will only get worse if neglected. It will probably cost less to repair than the depreciation on a newer vehicle. S124s are hopefully going up in value as they become less common. Good luck
 
Plenty of valuable opinions. Thanks a lot.
I like to have my cars in order. I am restoring a 1976 Volvo 240 while talking and that is a lot of time, effort, money.
This w 124 I would define it as usable example. Very clean interior and body is mint. Paid it 5k, probably too much, but FSH and 3 grand spent over the last 3 Years in maintenance, box, Sls. Engine is dry and pulls Great. Done 400miles from England to Scotland without any issue.
Found other nice w124 between 7 e 9k and they didn’t look much different. And it’s always difficult to organise and see the car underneath and have a deep inspection.
When I was looking for mine: concourse w124 are now over 10 grand, usable around 5, project around 2/2500. Good example I would expect around 8 grand. Based on my (very little) experience with w124 if I spend 3 grand on it in repairs I could still use the car and sell it at some point for 8 grand. Next question is, 3 grand would be enough to renovate rear subframe , new sls pipes (corroded from last 3 mot), rear Windows fix, jacking point welding?
Any opinion would be appreciated.
 
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£3k is more than enough to cover those repairs, but get it up on a ramp first to make sure that is all it needs.
 
Hard to find someone who knows well w124. Harder to find a mechanic to do the job. I do myself servicing, brakes, gearbox oil and diffenretial. All small jobs. This is something I can’t do myself. In a few days I have learnt more here than everywhere else. Had the sls level low. Mechanic, speaking of himself w124 expert, told me to top up with Dextron II. He was insisting ZHM fluid doesn’t exists anymore.
trusting the expert I bought dextron II and yesterday I have top up the level. Didn’t turn the engine on. I felt it wasn’t right. And of course he was wrong.
Bought in the end ZHM fluid, waiting delivery today. Meantime I have flashed the system.
I have realised over the years keeping classic cars and young timers is not easy and only if you find knowledgeable people you’ll be able to get thing sorted without wasting time and money and having fun:)
Otherwise it gets frustrating and any car becomes money pit.
 
To give you an idea earlier this year ours had a thorough refresh at 25years old and 187000 miles. The brake pipes had been an advisory for many years but this time it was felt that they really did need replacement so it was decided to do whatever was needed to set it up for another 20+ years. So a very long list - Rear brake pipes replaced, new differential seals, new prop shaft couplings, Rear exhaust box, new front cover seal, front roll bar and bushes, front top mounts, new charcoal cannister, both front track rods, tailgate struts, remove and refurbish rear subframe, replace all bushes, protection applied to underbody, wheel alignment, new fuel hose - the strange very bendy one, and a few other bits I can't now remember exactly. The SLS pipes were fine. The bill was above your 3K (around 4K) but doing it altogether rather than piecemeal saved quite a bit in labour costs.

To cap it all its now just had a new evaporator for the AC - a dash out job. Hopefully thats it for a while but you never know.
 
Not cheap but your car is new now :)
At least I’ll save on the evaporator, no AC on my 300D.
 
Not cheap but your car is new now :)
At least I’ll save on the evaporator, no AC on my 300D.
In normal times it spends 10 months of the year in Italy. This year it was there for just 3 months. The rest of the time its been my daily driver back here. The evaporator failed on the run down to Italy at the beginning of July when travel became possible. It was miserable without AC and not surprisingly no one wanted to tackle the job locally. Not sure i would have trusted anyone to do it out there in any case.
Olly and his team at PCS look after it. They really are excellent but its a long way from Glasgow.
 
If you use it that much definetely Ac is a must, especially in Continent. Mine has got sunroof, of little help when it’s raining, awesome when sunny, including winter. Where is you mech based?
 
If you use it that much definetely Ac is a must, especially in Continent. Mine has got sunroof, of little help when it’s raining, awesome when sunny, including winter. Where is you mech based?
They are in Horndean, just north of Portsmouth.
 
That’s walking distance from me 🤣🤣🤣
I have taken my volvo to another country for restoration and If I am no confident in local “w124 expert” I wouldn’t mind to take it to England :)
 
That’s walking distance from me 🤣🤣🤣
I have taken my volvo to another country for restoration and If I am no confident in local “w124 expert” I wouldn’t mind to take it to England :)

Bit closer for you than Horndean would be Merparts at Port Glasgow. They are very good at what they do and specialise in the earlier stuff.

Certainly worth a chat to at any rate...
 
Finally had the chance to look at the car underneath.



















 
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That looks a lot better than average from the pics. I would have a good poke around the black factory "underseal" esp in your pic 4 - it looks like it may be coming away so have a look behind it if it is peeling. The jacking points look quite a bit worse than the rest of the underneath looks - suggest removing the outer plastic sill covers and have a look at the sills. Most likely they will be OK and it will just be the jacking points. On the jacking points it is worth checking that it is just the non structural part of the jacking point that has suffered and not the main support inside it.
 
Hi Smiley, I have experience with old cars not with w124.
it seems pretty solid to my standards :)
Picture 4 underseal is loose but solid underneath! Frame Bushes have been replaced recently and there is no rust to the body there.
At the moment in my urgent to do list I have got: jacking points and quarter rear window seal/rust. Which is not bad.
I have got to look into the fuel gauge stack at 1/4, replace the fuel gauge bulb and fix the light bulb indicator on the dash always on (even if no bulb needs replacement)
 
two classic rust structural failure points on the the W124 REAR JACKING POINTS and BODY FRONT MOUNTS for the rear subframe. As said Merparts in Glasgow get a good name for older models
 
The bulb warning works on change in resistance. it will come on before a bulb fails so chances are there is one that is on the way out. Sometimes can get a clue if something obvious triggers it such as brake pedal. Worth replacing each one in turn before looking for a fault with the system itself.
 

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