Man, am I ever envious! Looks like you folks had a great time down there. Would have been a bit far for a weekend trip for me.
My loss!
And my hat's off to the young lady crawling under the car. I haven't known too many women who would gladly dive under a car. My young apprentice was an exception but she took her '79 240D and moved out west.

Larry bible made a great demo on the oil drip timing segment too.I forgot to ask ,when will these videos be available ,does anyone know? Im willing to tackle any mb project head on but it would be real nice to have help via a video instructor showing me any snags I might come across.

LOL ,R leo .Isnt their a cat ranch out by your stretch ,or was that a jackalope farm.By the way that five speed you have in that wagon is the balls .Pulls down the rpms to what ?, 2000 at 65mph.Im curious of your trip back home ,did your mileage bring you back home with no stops for fuel?Im putting aside money for that project to happen, soon as a five speed comes in sight.

Dave, I filled w/diesel in Rockdale the night before the GTG, drove to the GTG, left that evening and headed home on I-30, I-635 and then south on I-35. It was getting late (11:30) and I was down to just below 1/4 tank so I stopped somewhere near Hillsboro to fill up with the most expensive diesel I've ever purchased ($3.19/gal) with right at 393 miles on the clock and calculated 27.5 something mpg. FWIW, that's the longest all-highway trip I've made with her in the 5-speed configuration and the absolute best mileage I've ever achieved in Marlene.

In 5th, I think she's turning about 2200rpm @ 70mph. When I solve that vibration issue, I honestly believe I'll have the perfect car.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

I actually tried the spring compressor last night. .. and it does not fit through the hole to put the shaft of the tool. You can forced it in by starting to compress the spring but there is no way to get it out. so I could actually remove the springs but i cannot put them back... The car is now disabled. The entire front suspenssion is on the floor (in less than 2.5 hours). But now I need a slimer (just 1mm in diameter thinner) to get through the access hole.

The BMW 1914 tool to remove the tierod ends and the ball joints rocks!!!! It takes all the sweat out of the operation

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Aquilae non capunt muscas! (Eagles don't hunt flies!)


1979 300SD Black/Black MBtex239000mi
1983 300TD euro-NA. White/Olive Cloth-MBtex 201000mi. Fleet car of the USA embassy in Morocco
1983 240D Labrador Blue/Blue MBtex 161000mi

I found the exact same thing last summer when I did this job. I spent 5 minutes on each side with a dremel to slightly enlarge the holes and then the tool fit. A light treatment of POR-15 afterward and all was good. You don't need to remove very much material - the shaft almost fits as it is.

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Bob
'82 300D Petrol B-G Metallic

dang! I thought my spring compressor would work.

If you need the press for the ball joints, just give me a shout! I'll PM you my cell phone #....

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~shell
As of 2/2010:
2001 CLK55 0o\=*=/o0
13.6 @ 106mph
10K mi
1984 300SD
260K mi and going and going...
97 S600
46K miles
1991 Sentra SE-R (extremely dorked with)
www.se-r.net

Looks like it was fun! If I was still in Oklahoma, I would have been there for sure.

Rashakor

Sent you an email. I can come by and install the coil springs with my compressor. Get everything installed and done and I can come by with the compressor and install the springs. Mine is the Sir Tool compressor that fits the W123's

Dave

I sent you an email with contact numbers.

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1970 220D, owned 1980-1990
1980 240D, owned 1990-1992
1982 300TD, owned 1992-1993
1986 300SDL, owned 1993-2004
1999 E300, owned 1999-2003
1982 300TD, 213,880mi, owned since Nov 18, 1991- Aug 4, 2010 SOLD
1988 560SL, 100,000mi, owned since 1995
1965 Mustang Fastback Mileage Unknown(My sons)
1983 240D, 176,000mi (My daughers) owned since 2004
2007 Honda Accord EX-L I4 auto, the new daily driver
1985 300D 264,000mi Son's new daily driver.(sold)
2008 Hyundai Tiberon. Daughters new car

I'm ashamed to say that I just found this thread Tuesday!

First, thanks for all the nice comments. John & I had a GREAT time with all you guys.

Second, that "girl" under the car -- thank you! -- is me!! And yes, Roy showed me a LOT of porn under our cars, darn it!! We've dealt with some of it, and just retired a couple of our others until we are ready to tackle ball joints, the $400 proper tool being the biggest hang-up for us.

Third, the videographer left something to be desired -- seasickness ensues from watching the raw footage. Roy and his friend Pete Williams did a little editing for a tech session they did in Detroit a couple of months ago, and those segments are not quite so weird. I'm still working on cleaning them up to make them safe for human viewing, but will let you know.

Finally, I've just confirmed we're going to do it again. I know, it's 6 months off, but planning is not a bad thing!

• Roy is checking dates between Labor Day and the second weekend in November, and will let me know when he can get away and come down.
  
• I'm going to be talking to a couple of local (Dallas) techs about coming out and participating.
  
• MBCA North Texas is still talking about what a cool event we had, and they want to participate.
  
• Tri Lakes Garage has been cleaned, organized, and spiffed -- it's MUCH nicer to work on cars there than it was! The big lift is installed. And we are welcome back anytime.
  
• The Barbeque Corral asks regularly when we're going to bring back all those nice Mercedes nuts. Of course, their favorite was Roy, who ate there twice a day the entire time he was here....
  
• We need to start thinking about what we want to do, what we want to learn, etc. so Roy and I can be planning and making arrangements.

Later today or tomorrow, I'll go post this to our original thread as well as posting it as as a new thread, but I wanted to get everyone thinking.

Sunny

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Anthracite 1980 300D -- 64k original miles with a new engine, on the road again!
Silver 300D -- second owner, Sunny's old baby, Ilse, 210 miles,
Having to thin the herd….
Silver 1983 300SD -- second owner, 325k miles
Gold 1981 300D -- well-traveled, solid little car
Beige 1984 300D -- 292k miles, grease machine, parting out
Seafoam green 1981 300SD -- 250k, windshield frame damage
too many assorted w123 & w126 cars, parts cars, and extras

That's all I can say! Its really nice to see MB guys going all out to help each other like that! The other thing is the weather!! Geez, that looked like fantastic weather!

Today, its about 3 degrees in Metro Van, probably below zero with the 50 kmh wind, and I just heard of 'blizzard-like conditions' on the radio at what used to be known as 'Sunny Surrey'

__________________
1987 300TD
1984 300D
755,000 KM and going strong
BC Canada

Please note the date of the original post.....

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Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

Sunny ,hows the family of Mbs ? and Bob .Half shafts have been put on my 84 goldie and we're ready for a long test drive.Sounds like round two of who can get the dirties while looking good doing it is going to be coming up ,thats great to hear.

in the meantime we sould be thinking in doing a spring gtg to R&R the trailing arm on "China".

__________________
------------------------------------------
Aquilae non capunt muscas! (Eagles don't hunt flies!)


1979 300SD Black/Black MBtex239000mi
1983 300TD euro-NA. White/Olive Cloth-MBtex 201000mi. Fleet car of the USA embassy in Morocco
1983 240D Labrador Blue/Blue MBtex 161000mi

Sunny,

Please keep me posted, I would love to come to the next event. I'm in Kansas and willing to make the drive for a hands on how to session and to meet some of the great folks on this web site.

You guys all looked like you had a great time.

JimmyL, Thanks for the great story and pictures...

Doc.