My buddy and I drove up to Cleveland this past week and he picked up a 560SEL for $1100.
It needs some work but the main motivation for getting this was to have a solid chassis. His 300SE is rusting.
Here are some pics of the car:
Thus far we know it needs
1) paint job--have access to paint booth so not a huge deal
2) high idle (1500rpm) problem fixed--the guy who owned it said he "raised the idle because it was hard to start in the winter"..just how would one go about doing that? As far as I know there isn't a idle adjust screw, is there?
3) air bags --- the flex disc broke and the vibration set them off.
Thus far everything seems to work. The motor was transplanted in from another vehicle it has 130k roughly on it...
There are some extraneous pictures at the end of some seats..just ignore them.
Let me know thoughts/comments/questions/etc
http://imgur.com/a/9F5IO/mike039s_1990_560sel/1
Thanks,
Kris