I wish I had the money and the time to do stuff like this!!

It helps when its a 4-6 hr boat ride away.

Did somebody say Green?? :D
I wouldn't mind one of those taxis......

Mercedes should have an ad campaign with stuff like this in it! Those are great pictures.

He is certainly a W123 Rock Star!!!!!

you think they would but MBUSA is all about elitism, reason why we will never see the A-Class or Actros trucks over here

I could handle the South American equivalent ;) I really enjoyed the pics from the guy who did that straight out of college. IIRC, was in a gray W116 300SD.

Ya, I know a guy here locally that did that to. Drove a 116 down there sold it flew back.

Hi,

found this thread on a referral..

I'm no god at all :) The W123 is.. :cool:

To respond to some questions:

@Winmutt:
Unfortunately it's not a 4-6 hour boat ride away. To enter Africa from the Netherlands is like a 2 day drive (with my speed, that's like 16 hours each day).
Turkey is also like 2 days. This summer I drove back from Istanbul and it took 46 hours driving and waiting at the borders :-)
But you can take 3 or 4 days, which is more relaxed.

The next plan is Mongolia/Siberia (Russia), would be nice to go to Japan to and then cross the sea to the US.

@300SD81
>How does he do it? I got stuck in the sand just parking at the beach... Do TDs have a LSD?

I don't have any things added to the car, except that I lifted the car for some cm's and installed heavy duty shockers (but not at the rear, because there aren't any for the T model)
I've got some experience now and that helps a lot, you can do a lot with a RWD

@kerry:
for two or three weeks I was travelling with a german couple and this way I could experiment in the mud. But lots of river crossings, mud parts and all the desert parts I was alone. Carrying a compressor and sand plates helps a lot. Also, the air jack and the regular jack are very easy tools to carry with yout. You can nearly always get out, but it's just easier to have a car with a winch around of course..

This year I travelled through the desert of Wadi Rum (Jordan), and I was again stunned about what you can do with just a RWD car with a heavy payload.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3196/...e35d0a13_b.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3193/...386d486e_b.jpg

Last but not least, nice to read all these nice reactions!

Greetz from a big W123 fan!
Jurgen

The big green truck on the other site with the Camel on the side...

Never leave home without your sand ladders!

Pooka

Jurgen:
Welcome to the forum. While everyone here will be glad you joined, us TD owners will be especially excited to learn more about your adventures. We'll also want to know more about your TD. How many miles on it? You say you raised it, does it have the hydropneumatic suspension in the rear?

Kerry

Hey Jurgen,

Welcome to the forum. AMAZING pics from your journeys.

I'd love to see a documentary of your travels.;)

I'd also love to get an expedition rack w/ tent like yours. Mine would only see the US though.:o

It never ceases to amaze me the Mercedes you see on news footage from places in the ME that are 20-30 years old still running in one of the most brutal environments on earth for mechanical things.

I always wonder how often they change the oil, and the filters on those cars over there.

Hi,

@Kerry: It still has the original rear shock absorbers (hydropneumatic ones indeed). The problem is, I did not find a heavy duty solution, Mercedes Benz did not manufacture that. I do have heavy duty coil springs though, in the front and rear.

The first modification I did was installing a new Webasto waterheater (there was an original DBW43 Webasto -if my memory serves me well-) which was replaced for a brand new one with remote control.
I also adjusted the Mercedes to drive on straight vegetable oil, this is an Elsbett kit.
Then after some trips I finally raised the car with only OEM stuff (heavy duty coilsprings and heavy duty shock absorbers in the front).
There are also these distance rubbers, I used the largest ones.

I also bought the imperial from King Ping, including the rooftent, sand plates, Airjack, compressor, fuel tanks. All this was ready exactly on time before departing to Africa. One thing I still missed was the oil carter protection, that trip I needed it the most, but it all went okay.

Ready for departure to Africa.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2098/...5780d2ce18.jpg

This year I managed to get the original Mercedes-Benz metal protection plate, but in the last few days in Turkey this year I hit a stone -very- hard so it's bended right now (I had to get it off in Turkey on our way back).

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2192/...d45424f337.jpg

I also installed very cool AT tyres, which are used in the auto rallies here in Europe (but it's completely thorn apart already, this happened in Jordan)

I used a Garmin GPS Cx60 this year, which is portable.

The mileage was...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2307/...2e5141.jpg?v=0


Somewhere in Africa I had this cool mileage:
http://w123club.nl/components/com_fi...ges/123123.jpg

This one is on the way back this summer:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3172/...2c9d93.jpg?v=0


It now has 195292km on the clock.


I am not sure where you can buy a King Ping imperial. Rooftent might be possible to buy in the US, maybe someone on expeditionportal.com can help you with that. It's unfortunately very expensive though.

I found a shock absorber specialist who tried to make handmade heavy duty shockers for my T model, but he did not manage to finish it on time this year, so that project failed. But again, the -original shockers- just survived again, after all the heavy bumping and the +2 ton gross weight!

I am busy writing the whole story, from the moment I found this Benz until now, but lots of translating/writing still needs to be done.

I try to make some progress this weekend again.

Here are some pics of the various countries the Benz has been to.
My W123 in various countries

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Greetings,
Jurgen

Dang!
 

Jurgen: I'm not even worthy enough to shine your shoes.