Just bought a 1990 300SL - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

hispassion · #1 05-30-2008, 02:45 AM

Just added another one to my stable (wait, I don't have a stable), err - driveway.

Year: 1990 - Chassis: 129.061 - Engine: 104.981

Yes, my wife wanted a convertible. There's a lot of work to do. The gal we bought it from had a boyfriend/S.O. that seemed to be curious how ***** broke when you tried to pry it off. Mechanically, the car runs great. Cosmetically, the car needs work. Many cosmetic or trim parts are missing or have been removed. Heck, he even took the sun visors off and lost them. The big kick in the a$$ is that he tried to paint the trunk and rear bumper of the car, get this, with a brush!!! So, I'll have to paint it and I'll have to fix the soft top as it doesn't function correctly. The A/C isn't working and I'm sure I'll uncover a few other things before I put it on the road.

I hope to not have to spend a fortune on this and hope to be able to do all my own work, except for an alignment, painting and A/C charging.

Hopefully as I learn this model/chassis, I'll (in the process) help others.

Michael B.

Roncallo · #2 05-30-2008, 07:23 PM

Good luck with it. If you need any parts check my E-bay sight.

moakesr · #3 05-31-2008, 07:47 AM

Good Luck, it sounds like you have bought yourself a challenge

At least it's an early one with understandable electrics, rather than the canbus systems in the later cars.

Shame PO's BF was such a chump, trim bits seem to cost as if they are made of unobtainium these days, I hope you got it appropriately cheap.

hispassion · #4 06-01-2008, 02:13 AM

Yeah, its going to be a challenge, but as much and bad as it looks on the surface, it's not that bad. Understandable electrics. I like that.

I worked on it today and amazingly didn't get totally discouraged. In the process of assessing things, I found it particularly easy to repair his screw-ups. Thought process? Do the opposite of what a gorilla would do and it seems to be repairable.

Today I repaired the seats as they didn't release with the lever. I needed to do this so I could get in the back and work on the carpet and trim behind the seats. The repair was to get the latches to release on both sides. The lever pulls on two cables and as I see it is much like a parking brake setup. You can't adjust one without adjusting the other. So, once I got the seat to release I was able to remove the screws in the lower part of the seat back, thus allowing the seat back to come off, exposing the mechanisms. From there, I made the adjustment to both cables and bent the long cable support, in effect shortening the cable. Without this adjustment, I would have had to replace the cable as it was too long and there was no more adjustment available. The bending worked.

The other thing I did was to remove all the left over wires/cables from the removed (or stolen) sub woofer and amp. Typical sound shop installation. Holes cut and drilled. Screws missing. If anyone is parting out one of these 129's and reads this post, it would be particularly helpful to have some miscellaneous screws, etc. Surely someone somewhere has a box full of Mercedes hardware they're willing to let go of.

Lastly, I removed the wood center console and fixed a bunch of loose stuff relative to that. Now I have to figure out how to wire the stereo without an amp. A wiring diagram would be helpful.

Is there a test for the A/C controller? Are these typically faulty? Another post for another time, but just thought of it so made mention.

Needed: Shop manual and Owner's manual.

Regards,
Michael B.

ctaylor738 · #5 06-01-2008, 03:44 PM

For a shop manual, I recommend an alldatadiy subscription. You will get the wiring diagrams as part of it. If you go to the benzworld.org 129 forum you will see a sticky that will point you at a site where you can download an owner's manual.

Lastly, get yourself a EPC subscription, a huge help in ID'ing parts at https://epc.startekinfo.com/epc/home.jsp

hispassion · #6 06-02-2008, 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ctaylor738

For a shop manual, I recommend an alldatadiy subscription. You will get the wiring diagrams as part of it. If you go to the benzworld.org 129 forum you will see a sticky that will point you at a site where you can download an owner's manual.

Lastly, get yourself a EPC subscription, a huge help in ID'ing parts at https://epc.startekinfo.com/epc/home.jsp

Thanks for the info. Got the Manual and some cool videos. Also bookmarked the AlldataDIY site and EPC site.

Now, just need to find an OM for my 300CE. Why people lose these is beyond me.

Valuable information, thanks again.

Michael B.

rfpmoxie · #7 06-06-2008, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hispassion

Yeah, its going to be a challenge, but as much and bad as it looks on the surface, it's not that bad. Understandable electrics. I like that.

I worked on it today and amazingly didn't get totally discouraged. In the process of assessing things, I found it particularly easy to repair his screw-ups. Thought process? Do the opposite of what a gorilla would do and it seems to be repairable.

Today I repaired the seats as they didn't release with the lever. I needed to do this so I could get in the back and work on the carpet and trim behind the seats. The repair was to get the latches to release on both sides. The lever pulls on two cables and as I see it is much like a parking brake setup. You can't adjust one without adjusting the other. So, once I got the seat to release I was able to remove the screws in the lower part of the seat back, thus allowing the seat back to come off, exposing the mechanisms. From there, I made the adjustment to both cables and bent the long cable support, in effect shortening the cable. Without this adjustment, I would have had to replace the cable as it was too long and there was no more adjustment available. The bending worked.

The other thing I did was to remove all the left over wires/cables from the removed (or stolen) sub woofer and amp. Typical sound shop installation. Holes cut and drilled. Screws missing. If anyone is parting out one of these 129's and reads this post, it would be particularly helpful to have some miscellaneous screws, etc. Surely someone somewhere has a box full of Mercedes hardware they're willing to let go of.

Lastly, I removed the wood center console and fixed a bunch of loose stuff relative to that. Now I have to figure out how to wire the stereo without an amp. A wiring diagram would be helpful.

Is there a test for the A/C controller? Are these typically faulty? Another post for another time, but just thought of it so made mention.

Needed: Shop manual and Owner's manual.

Regards,
Michael B.

Surely, it seems as if you will be successful. My '90 300sl is close to defect or gremlin free. I have the occasional "dash flash" and a temperamental soft top (which is hardly used). The other problem is that the latch mechanism doesn't work (used to) on the drivers seat. As I am unable to bend it forward, I haven't figured out how to get the "plastic" shell off to shorten and/or re-hook the cable. You seemed to indicate that the 2 seats were "tied" together. Does this mean that I can release the driver seat back somehow even though pulling on the latch gives you that "empty" feeling. Thanks in advance and good luck.

Ron

tecqboy · #8 06-06-2008, 02:54 PM

Ron: The "dash flash" can be fixed by replacing the 470mfd filter capacitor on the back of the cluster. You can get one at Radio Shack for about $1. Do a forum search... The hardest part is pushing the cluster out to service it. A forum search will produce a tell all thread. The seat latch is also a fairly easy fix. A couple of bolts on the seat front removes the bottom cushion, then a couple more on the back to remove the top cushion. After that adjusting the cables is straight forward. I believe a forum search will result in a complete seat disassemby thread. These are both common problems we've all had to deal with.