Restoring an AMG Hammer Wagon, my story Part 1

[Hammer Wagon]

I recently thanked Dean Albrecht for making me aware of this forum. I wanted to introduce myself to the forum, as I’m sure I’ll need tons of advice (and moral support) for a long time.

About six months ago I purchased an AMG Hammer wagon. Well, technically a 1988/90 AMG 300TE 6.0 wagon. Car & Driver called it a “Mallet” wagon. There is much “historic” argument (if that’s not too strong a word to use) over whether the 6.0 engine is what is referred to as the Hammer engine (the M117 5.6 liter bored to 6.0), or is it only the 6.0 engine with the 32v head, or is it the original 4 door W124 body only, while all others are just CE 6.0s, TE 6.0s, SEC 6.0s and so on. I won’t pretend I know the answer to the question, although some original articles showed 5.6 liter Hammers with the 32v head, and an article in Automobile Magazine in 1988 profiled the first AMG Hammer Wagon (yes Dean, I’ll have to scan it for you, I also have the Dec 1986 C&D AMG Hammer test “Speed Reading” article) built by AMG in Illinois for a well to do Canadian customer (he had 3 other AMG conversions, this Azure blue car being for his lucky wife). As an aside, the car cost in excess of $180k since the only wagon to convert in 1987 was the W124 300TD diesel, requiring an entire re-wire for the gas engine, aside from the running gear transplant.

I’ve seen my car mentioned a few times on the forum over the last two years, there were even some photos posted of the car (Neil?) in its sorry state. I say that because, beauty being in the eye of the beholder, this particular car, originally a Black monotone (or as C&D says, “as if the car had fallen into a vat of boiling tar”) was treated to a two tone Black and silver paint scheme, stock silver grill, gold fender trims, gold BBS wheels (now decorating my garage) with bald Pirelli 190 Winter tires and a pencil thin chrome exhaust protrusion that looked more like a curb feeler. Mechanically, it seems the car was “driven hard and put away wet” as the saying goes. Reputedly, and I may be corrected with tales of 300k mile cars, the 6.0 motors did not hold up well, or it may just be the beating that these cars took. In particular the 32v head is supposed to have been quite troublesome. Fortunately, my car has the 16v head. I will miss the 40 or so more HP, but I don’t have the “200 man hours and $65,000” it took to assemble these legendary heads. My apologies to AMG, as I am repeating street talk, and I do not intend to slander the quality of AMG’s product. I would love to hear tales of how robust these engines are, in fact the M117 engine is considered quite a workhorse.

Sorry if my story is a long one (grab a beer if you didn’t take speed reading in college). A little over two years ago I saw this particular car for sale on eBay- I had only seen a Hammer wagon for sale years before in Hemmings. The pictures that were posted elsewhere on this forum are from that listing and I absolutely had to have it. Call me crazy, but I always wanted a Mercedes wagon, and since the Automobile article in 1988 my dream car was not a low slung Italian two person and their two toothbrushes transporter, but a 7 passenger “mom from hell”, may Dodge forgive me, Mercedes Power Wagon. Then I made the mistake of mentioning it to my wife.

“&$)%”>* #$*)$*)@”, said she.

To her credit my wife is very tolerant of my automotive orphan adoption tendencies, but at the time I was “tending” to a 1983 Aston Martin Lagonda (painful story for another day), an old Alfa Romeo, a friends rusted late 60’s?? Mercedes coupe (anyone interested?), my neighbor’s long wheelbase Checker among other automotive cast-a ways. “It’s a great family car, and you can do carpool with it” said I, imagining her, hell-bent for the kids school on a slick, leafy autumn morning with 360hp at the rear wheels and no traction control.

“Ah, but you already have a family car”, said she with a smile. Yes, I had a beautiful 1995 Alfa Romeo 164 Quadrifoglio sedan, 1 of only 30 imported in Alfa’s last year of US distribution. She didn’t much like that our family car had a five speed and that I thought I was Tazio Nuvolari every time I was behind the wheel, but she dealt with it. The Hammer was out and I watched my dream car go to another, refreshing the computer screen for an hour after the auction ended until it set in. I noted the buyers email address and went on with my life.

Fast forward a good few months, our third child had been born, the Lagonda was gone and the Alfa 164Q had been sold to a good home in California to make way for a larger “family car.” I’m not a sociologist or a mathematician, so I can’t explain why two adults and three children need a car with seven seats, but that’s the American way. I wanted a Benz wagon, my wife wanted an SUV, and we purchased a 1997 Toyota Land Bruiser. A great truck if you live in Congo, totally ill suited to a country where even the national forests have paved roads (just my opinion, of course). Fortunately, my wife was raised in a VW family and she soon tired of the seasickness and stand on the brakes ‘cause this truck weighs two and a half tons and I began my search for a Mercedes Wagon.

And then it happened.

I had just grabbed a coffee and I was doing my daily eBay search for ‘mercedes + wagon” and there it was. “1988/90 AMG Mercedes Benz 6.0 Wagon- 155 MPH” was the exact listing. I looked at the pictures and this car was an all black monotone with silver Monoblock wheels. Can’t be the same car I’m thinking when I see the sellers email address. Same guy that bought the car a year and a half before! Even the listing had some of the same quotes. The listing detailed some mechanical and cosmetic work the car needed, but I was blinded by lust. I was not going to let this car get away from me again.

Then I made the mistake of mentioning it to my wife. Again.

I’m a one fingered typist, so I’ll get to the point. The reserve wasn’t met, the car didn’t sell and the personal offer “button” on eBay didn’t work. Or maybe my web developer wife rigged the computer, so I emailed the seller, we connected by phone and began a dialogue. He was selling because his wife couldn’t drive the car in bad weather. He is well connected, and somehow had gotten hold of a one-off Audi S8 Wagon prototype, one of only six made (does that make it a six-off?). The Audi is giving him nothing but trouble, body leaks and all, being a prototype, and yes, I have first rights when he tires of it. He had restarted the auction and I was satisfied by the records he forwarded to me and some other references and there I was with the winning bid. He ended up with less than he wanted, I thought I had the deal of a lifetime, and no, the story doesn’t end there.

As a matter of fact, go get another beer, it’s just starting.

There are rules to follow when buying a car, even if it’s from a family member. I had a book once, “How to buy a car long distance,” it was over 100 pages, and I think I broke every rule in it. They could have used my pained expression as a photograph on the cover of the book. If a car has a $16,000 engine give or take, a certain degree of caution is undertaken by any sane person buying such car and such sane person never buys said car sight unseen.

I bought the car sight unseen.

Have you ever wanted something so badly, you threw caution to the wind and said to hell with the consequences? Granted the buyer had $14,000 in verifiable receipts, owned a number of other very tasty cars, checked out with all the mechanics and had sorted out everything in the car. Or so I thought. The car and been sanded and resprayed, hence the new black monotone finish. The AC was totally redone to R134, the records showed a new compressor, generator, regulator, starter motor, battery, radiator, coolant tank, thermostat, exhaust, catalytic converter, tie rods, drag links, wheel bearings, control arms etc… the engine even had a top end rebuild.

What could possibly go wrong, I’m thinking? Or not thinking as it turned out.

The car was shipped out the week of Christmas, Chicago to New Jersey. After a very long holiday season the car arrived at 5pm on New Years Eve. I took a photo of the car on the flat bed truck for posterity, grimaced as the front spoiler scraped on the way off the truck (the car was sitting a bit low) and I proudly parked the car in my garage. A few minutes later there’s a line of coolant creeping along the side wall of my garage. The next day I placed a call to the previous owner, who said it always dumped coolant, only while running, and that was the cooling issue he had described.

I had been spending all my time finding the missing side skirts and rear hatch trim handle. Needless to say, I had to find a good independent Mercedes shop. Two Mercedes friends and my neighbor (two W124s 1988/95 and a 190E) recommended a local independent shop. The car is not done yet, but I only have praise for the shop and its’ owner. (email me if you are in central, NJ and could use a good independent Mercedes only shop). The owner had worked for Mercedes for years and had trained Mercedes mechanics during that period.

Diagnosis? The engine had been damaged, most likely heat damaged at some point in its life. The 6.0s are known to have cooling issues. Bad rod, scored cylinders, bad bottom end. Rebuild time. While the engine is out we inspect the transmission, some bad clutches there. Rebuild time. Hey, at least I have a few months before I have to sort out all the cosmetic issues!

Continued Part 2...