the dale made me do it
 

So I purchased a car today. Almost qualifies for the cheap wagon club. Its a 1995 e320 wagon. Gunmetal on grey.


My friend dale talked the guy down to 1200Attachment 84832

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Looks very clean!

Kids love wagons - but I don't think they need the caged partition. I'm just sayin'....

Beautiful car!

Sweet wagon!

The use of the cargo cage is dependent on the child:D

you don't know my 4 year old :)

I thought about mounting a DVD player on the hatch and closing off the rear completely :)

Very nice!
remember all the suggestions I gave you to get the tranny perfect, and post results here!

oh, and remember, if you close off the rear totally, he won't get any a/c... I'm just sayn!

that was dale's kid. I've got two girls. Man they are like their mother. I remember riding in the sd with the older one with no ac at one point and she wasn't happy. Thats something I'll need to work out.


the symptoms are:
As the drivetrain heats up, the tranny gets unhappy. shifts great cold but as it warms it flares. the assumption being that the gunk gets warm and moves around. So we are going to clean her up.

The tranny's fluid stinks. so we are going to drain it completely and run dextron 3 through it for a bit and the drain and refill with a new filter.

I'll let everybody know.


Oh yeah, owner said "HVAC doesn't work at all"

So we replaced the blower fuse and here it comes back to life.

how nice!! A/C and all!!

It is soooo refreshing when simple fixes take the place of MAJOR ordeals!

Run this thread as the new wagon's bookmark and progress blog.

WE WILL WANT PICTURES EVERY STEP OF THE WAY TOO!

sounds good. The big deal will be the tranny. After that the thing will be close to perfect. the locks work, the cruise works, the brakes don't squeak... I guess I could wax it

great find. it's shocking to me how cheap 124 cars are now. to think of what they cost new, how beautifully they are built and how they drive when they're sorted out (even a beat one drives better than 50% of the cars on the road), how safe they are, and how easy to work on. and people give them away. it's understandable, once they get past 15 or 20 years old they do need lots of major repairs, chassis parts start to go, that sort of thing. but to think you can buy that car looking like that for about a grand is a bit silly. but for people who are handy it's a bonus.

compressor is an unknown. i know the blower and flaps function properly. ill jump the low pressure switch and see if the comp engages. if the comp doesnt work...i know a guy:rolleyes:

oops read too fast, well at least the blower works
thank goodness we all have the guru's here to help

when you do the trannie service don't forget to drain the torque converter and blow out the trans cooler lines[going to the radiator].

Blow the converter out with compressed air while it's empty?

Ok, so we drained the tranny. It was an aluminum milkshake. No large pieces. but the filter was completely clogged and after we drained the pan and Torque converter and cleaned the pan, replaced the filter and refilled with Tranny fluid there was no significant shifting improvement.

Reverse slips, and it won't go from 3rd to fourth. 1st-3rd are fine.

Local Tranny shop will rebuild with 12mo warranty for 2k
Pick and Pull used tranny is <100$
Seal kit is 200-300$

Black friction material would be somewhat normal, aluminum would be much worse I'd guess, ... it wasn't magnetic/ferrous? It's beyond a "seal kit".

What do you want to do with it? The used trans might be your best bet for the money, if it's really nice and you plan to keep it a long time though, the reman is approximately worth what the car will be worth when you're finished, unless it is cherry.

BTW, '94/'95 transmissions are difficult to find, the earlier ones easy to find. Interchangeable except minor differences including the 1st-gear start which is pretty much mandatory with your 2.65:1 diff.

$1,200! Awesome. Sell it to me for $1500 before you put money in it lol.

I stuck a magnet in the juice and I got some stuff on it. There was about and 8th of an inch of thick stuff at the bottom of the pan.

I have a bunch of pictures. I'll post them when my wife gets back with the camera.

thats what I'm saying!!! So I completely rebuild the tranny for 2k. I'm for 3200$ Big deal.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._1276106_n.jpg
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._5232237_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...0_866013_n.jpg

check out how the fan has cut into the coolant hose (doesn't have anything to do with the tranny but I thought it was funny)

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._5901536_n.jpg

check out this milkshake in the bottom of the pan
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._2710690_n.jpg

hmmm pictures are gone, I posted them using links to my facebook page and it worked previously...weird.

Anyway....going to drain some fluid out today and replace with lucas anti slip. I also bought some TransX stop slip. Any opinions or experience with either?

is there coolant in the trans oil?
For $1200, I'd like to have it,to park in my driveway.
Fan hitting radiator hose: check engine mounts to be sure engine is not moving around due to failed mounts.
Anything can be fixed. Appearance seems great. Good buy.

I just took the wagon out for a 20mile excursion/tranny test. We put two bottles of Lucas slip stop into a severely slipping/flaring tranny and now it seems to be running fine. some of the shifts are hard, but we were also playing with the modulator. I will need to drive it more to see if I can't pull some use out of it before the rebuild.

From what I could tell, there wasn't any coolant, just normal debris from clutches that have been working for 175k. So we flushed it twice and added trans x tuneup the first time and lucas the 2nd.

Oh....best part

Kent: "do you the wagon honey?"

Bonnie: "Oh yeah, this is so much better than your other mercedes, I think you should keep it"

Guess that decision has been made.