Gutting w124 interior and harnesses
 

Ok, I have an ambitious project with my newest addition the 93 300d. The interior was soaked for hours with the Windows and sunroof down. I'm going to replace all the wiring with my parts car. The HVAC, sunroof Windows and everything don't work. Has anyone had to remove the harnesses of a w124 before? I'm going to remove absolutely everything below the carpets and swap it over. If so does anyone have pics of a gutted car.

Pwogaman has done a gut job.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/321601-1987-300td-w124-wagon-dc-impound-auction-%24450-ends-07-18-2012-a.html?highlight=Impound+auction

I have some pictures in my rust repair thread. I didn't remove the dash though.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/restoration-projects-long-term-builds/369456-my-ongoing-300te-project.html

Link to W124 service manuals. Everything you need to know here.

Model 124 Maintenance Manual Index

If it were me I think I'd try drying the car out before I'd go to that much work. I know that when I had a leak in the LR wheel well of my '95 diesel, I had gallons of water come in and flood the floor pan in the drivers footwell and rear seat footwell to where my carpets were awash. I had this happen a few times before I found the leak when I got caught in downpours and had to continue. I dried the car out and everything worked OK. Admittedly this was flooding from "below" rather than above, so I do understand your situation is different, but seems to me it would be worth a try...

Rgds,
Chris W.
ex 95 E300D, 467K

Thanks JayBob for the links. The interior removal looks easy and painless.

It doesn't look like it's bad once I gut both of the cars. Do any of the harnesses run through the firewall to the motor that you know of? And the harnesses in the pic on the floor, they go hidden behind that steel. Do you know how far they run? That looks like a headache! I'm not sure just because I've never done this and feel like I'm making it a big deal when it's probably cake work.

I bought the car off of a forum member who got the car after it was already soaked and growing mold/mildew. The guy he bought it from loaned it to his nephew to drive to a concert and left the windows and sunroof open after going out partying in the city and the interior and wiring was soaked but could have been saved if someone took it out and dried it. Sadly, too late I believe. It hasn't seen the streets since 2012.

There are some firewall penetrations of the harness but they provided a separation point on one side or the other. Remember they had to thread it through there to build the car so they wanted an easy way to complete the connection as the car is going down the line.

I believe most of the engine bay to cabin interconnection happens in a multi pole connector in the spaghetti pot in the bottom of the fuse box.

Also remember that the connectors are maintainable, you can remove the cap and slide the pins out of the shell with the wires still intact. Conversely if you have a broken wire you can actually fix it with a soldering iron. Try that on a new car.

As you go through the process, check the donor wire harness carefully where it goes out to the doors. This is a notorious failure point. It would be very easy to repair the harness with some fine stranded wire across the hinge points if you had the whole harness out on a table. MB used wire with a few coarse strands instead of many fine strands, and the flexing causes metal fatigue.

Jay, what would be a good way to remove the pins? Also, do you think it's the wiring itself that is shorted or just the connection ans replacing the pins may fix the electrical shorts?

Did this for different reasons. I don't think pictures will help much but I removed the entire interior from my 94 and put it into my 87... http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/344482-1987-300d-fun-starts.html It's a huge undertaking. Hopefully your parts car is of the same year, there was a lot to change between an 87 and 94.

You just slide the cover off and the pins can be slid out from the holder. Be careful to get them back in the right holes - take a picture first.

Wow, do you still have that 300D? You put so much effort into that car I would drive that til the wheels fall off despite the frame damage. The one is a 92 and the other is the 93. Everything should be the same. It should be an undertaking. I'm going to clean out the AC Ducts as well. They're pretty moldy/mildewed

Ok doesn't sound too bad.

So me and a buddy removed everything except the dash, center console and carpets. All seats removed, tracks & motors. The seats were terrible to get out because the seats didn't function properly and raise and slide forward and back. I discovered multiple mouse nests and squirrel nests as well (acorns everywhere). The seats were majorly waterlogged and about 25-30 pounds. The car smells a lot better with those out. Even though this car was soaked 6-7 years ago, there was still a lot of water everywhere. The reason the windows have a mind of their own, I discovered a lot of corrosion on wires and a molded convenience module (power of sunroof, windows etc). Unfortunately the last remaining bolt for the seat track has to be drilled out, it's stripped from someone before or just age and rust. I will re-tap it, but I'm not picky so 3 bolts will hold the seat in fine next time around for awhile or permanently.

Here's the progress. Tomorrow I'll take pictures of the convenience module and wiring I found. Lots of hacked together wiring as well for phones, aftermarket stereos etc. http://i971.photobucket.com/albums/a...psipy6yrjx.jpg

The bolts holding down the front seats thread into a removable clip, so you can fix that easy-peasy once you get the replacement bolt and clip from your donor.

I've gutted a 124 sedan, and I would NOT attempt to swap around the wiring harnesses. Clean up all the connection points, test for excessive resistance with a test light and 12v (a digital multimeter can be fooled into reading a low resistance because it passes a very small amount of current, which corrosion will allow, but when more current is passed by a real load, the voltage drops too much)

Thanks for the tip. How come you wouldn't swap the harnesses? I have a parts car side by side same year and options. Unfortunately that convenience module is destroyed I believe. Everything was soaked by all means and I think that wiring got shorted as well.