I'll take pictures of the rusted floor tomorrow and side panels so you guys can see what I'm talking about. It sucks. This would have been an awesome project

How about the door bottoms?

Sixto
87 300D

If it's not too bad...

__________________
"Senior Luna, your sense of humor is still loco... but we love it, anyway." -rickymay ____ "Your sense of humor is still loco... " -MBeige ____ "Señor Luna, your sense of humor is quite järjetön" -Delibes

1982 300SD -- 211k, Texas car, tranny issues ____ 1979 240D 4-speed 234k -- turbo and tuned IP, third world taxi hot rod

2 Samuel 12:13: "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die."

One wonders how the car missed being an ebay sale. Maybe it's time has come.

You know it gets 40 mpg. The air conditioning needs a charge. Not perfect but has potential. Car never let you down etc.

I would chalk this one up to experience.

Some on this board, including myself, have paid much more than $200 for a 123 only to find it to be a rust bucket.

Have you tried to crank it yet? You might have gotten lucky and the engine is still good.

And to be sure don't send it off to the crusher, before recovering whatever parts you can from the body. Many of the parts cross over to most other 123s.

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The OM 642/722.9 powered family
Still going strong
2014 ML350 Bluetec (wife's DD)
2013 E350 Bluetec (my DD)

both my kids cars went to junkyard in 2023
2008 ML320 CDI (Older son’s DD) fatal transmission failure, water soaked/fried rear SAM, numerous other issues, just too far gone to save (165k miles)
2008 E320 Bluetec (Younger son's DD) injector failed open and diluted oil with diesel, spun main bearings (240k miles)

1998 E300DT sold to TimFreeh
1987 300TD sold to vstech

How did you miss the floorboards before it followed you home?

Sixto
87 300D

wash all the crap off of it and shine up the paint if you can, vac out the interior, and put it on craigslist for 500 bucks as a parts car, and be willing to take 400.

Or, do all above and see if you can get the engine running off a water bottle full of diesel in the engine compartment, and ask 700 on craigslist and be willing to take 5-600 on it as a running parts car.

Or, (and this is the one I want you to do ), dont bother with cleaning it up, but get the engine to fire, and diesel swap to a candidate of your choice.

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probably the evil of vinyl hiding a much larger hole than was anticipated. Though im looking forward to some pics of the damage.

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This post brought to you by Carl's Jr.

I wouldn't even have bothered to check them -- the car is worth more in scrap alone.

__________________
"Senior Luna, your sense of humor is still loco... but we love it, anyway." -rickymay ____ "Your sense of humor is still loco... " -MBeige ____ "Señor Luna, your sense of humor is quite järjetön" -Delibes

1982 300SD -- 211k, Texas car, tranny issues ____ 1979 240D 4-speed 234k -- turbo and tuned IP, third world taxi hot rod

2 Samuel 12:13: "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die."

You check them because if they're solid you don't wait until next Tuesday to get the car

Sixto
87 300D

You have to have some time on your hands to buy every $200 car because you think you can scrap it out for $400 - $500. Takes some time to strip, haul, market, sell, ship parts. My time's worth more if I'm doing it for a profit.

Now I've squandered countless hours chasing around partsters for my hobby/antique cars.

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You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime you just might find you get what you need.

Or if you have a truck and trailer you haul it to Pick N Pull and get $300 for it in about ten minutes.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 400,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 22,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.

Lets see this rust, how bad can it be? lol........

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2004 F150 4.6L -My Daily
2007 Volvo XC70 -Wife's Daily
1998 Ford F150 -Rear ended
1989 J-spec 420SEL -passed onto its new keeper
1982 BMW 733i -fixed and traded for the 420SEL
2003 Volvo V70 5 Speed -scrapped
1997 E290 Turbo Diesel Wagon -traded for above
1992 BMW 525i -traded in
1990 Silver 300TE -hated the M103
1985 Grey 380SE Diesel Conversion, 2.47 rear end, ABS -Sold, really should have kept this one
1979 Silver 300D "The Silver Slug" -Sold

Ha! If I were looking for a W123 as a project or parts mobile and one showed up for $200and wasn't an absolutely hopeless basketcase with no redeeming qualities I would be there ASAP rubbing 2 Benjamins in the seller's face .
Definitely. And I wouldn't do it for any car, but if it was a car that I could get a major component out of, (such as an engine, transmission, or interior), I would be all for it. For example, I am now looking for a manual transmission 'Benz from the early '90s down or an 'SD with a nice interior and I would happily buy either one of those for $200 if it was close enough to me (within 50 miles) as long as I knew that the component that I wanted was in good shape.

__________________
"Senior Luna, your sense of humor is still loco... but we love it, anyway." -rickymay ____ "Your sense of humor is still loco... " -MBeige ____ "Señor Luna, your sense of humor is quite järjetön" -Delibes

1982 300SD -- 211k, Texas car, tranny issues ____ 1979 240D 4-speed 234k -- turbo and tuned IP, third world taxi hot rod

2 Samuel 12:13: "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die."