It's not my cuppa tea but I think it looks pretty good .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Just scored all 4 door panels, complete back seat, and passenger seat from a 2nd gen 126 for a reasonable price in the factory color and in mint condition. All the trim is in great shape... switches and handles.. no tears/holes.

Will probably be a little bit before they get here. Now just need to track down a driver's seat.

Do not understand the paint. It is not shiny; it is not metallic. It is called Raptor? Is that the final look? Does it get smoothed down or is it supposed to feel rough to the fingers?

Never seen anything like it. Is it normally used for pick up truck bed liners? What???

Lol.. it's called Raptor Liner. It's very similar to Rhino Liner except you can spray it yourself. Its a textured sprayable coating used for all sorts of things including bed liners.

No it will not be smoothed out.. no it will not have a high gloss finish. It hides all the deep scratches and imperfections in the body somewhat decently due to the textured appearance. It is also extremely scratch and chip resistant. No worries about door dings and such... along with sealing the body and preventing future rust.

I'm happy with the way the exterior has turned out. No.. it's not a restoration... but this car was a clapped out $700 beater that ran on maybe 3 cylinders when I got it home with a completely trashed interior. It just wasn't worth the cost of painting the car.

Definitely one of a kind!!!! What size tyres are they, they look massive?

The are ~29" diameter. 235/75/15s. Got the tires for ~74 each new and they are a 60k tire. Should get a lot of life out of them.


I live in a fairly rural area.. gravel roads and such are common and those roads get destroyed in the winter and spring storms. The added ground clearance and aggressive tread will not only protect the underside of the car, but likely insure that I dont get stuck. Lol


I did just receive the new springs for the rear along with the 19mm (3 burl) oem cups. The front springs seem to be good but I went on and ordered the 23mm (4 burl) cups for the front. I'm putting it on the lift this weekend and servicing the transmission.. doing some adjustments there and possibly swapping out the rear springs and repacking front wheel bearings while I'm at it.


I did notice a little play in the rear drivers wheel bearing. Not looking forward to doing that job... but I also have a rear diff from a 240d with a lower gear. That would put me within 1% on the speedo with the tire size change meaning it would drive like stock. Right now, it's a little slower off the line but cruises nice as it is turning quite a bit less rpm at 55-60 than it was before.


Not sure if I want to swap the rear out yet or not. We'll see.

My brother's W126 had a badly broken seat frame as well as trashed covers and one dead electric motor, we bought a decent passenger side seat and had another old bad cover seat, took them all apart and built one super firm (we're both big guys) and perfect operating driver's seat out of the three, it's a day job that requires no special tools but you'll want to work over a clean and light colored surface because there are myriad tiny little clips, shims, screws, washers, bumpers and God along remember what all else that will drop out and might get lost .

We also discovered two of the seats had cut and shortened electric motor cables ~ only the outer sleeves, not the inner cable with the square ends ~ I have no idea who/why did this but I built up nice original drive cables after cleaning all the old grease, dirt and lint out .

-DO- take the time to cover the spring box with something before reinstalling the coconut fiber pads ! this prevent them from falling apart and also serves to gusset the load bearing making the seats *much* comfier .

We also added the round black cylindrical shaped orthopedic supports in the front two coil springs, another little thing that really helps support your thighs & legs .

New from the M-B-Classic enter for about $6 each or found in my otherwise worthless scrap seats in the junkyards .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Got the 126 in the shop this weekend and up on my new portalift. Really liking the Quickjack 7k so far.

Anyways.. replaced shifter bushings (they were missing)... drained the transmission and serviced it (fluid was NASTY but no excess metal or material in the pan)... updated the modulator (come to find out the old one's cap was cracked)... repaired the oil cooler hose and replaced the clapped out motor mounts.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE!

The car shifts great now. A little firm but not harsh.. just about perfect. When coming to a stop now, I thought the car died the first time. No vibrations... no rattles... didn't even sound like it was running with the windows up.

Oil cooler hose repair seems to be doing good. I got it hot and ran it fairly hard. No signs of weeping or anything weird going on. I'll replace the other hose section soon as the clapped out motor mounts had the belt eating into the outer layer of the hose pretty good.

Overall, a good weekend. My spring compressor didn't show up yet so I couldn't install the new springs and rubbers yet.. maybe next weekend.

Anyways.. pictures...

This mount is bad. Cracked.. weak.. etc.


This mount didn't exist. Missing one bolt and the rubber was almost completely gone.






Hose repair on the car.




Double clamped with Norma clamps and safety wired. No more oil cooler leak. I'll keep a close eye on the clamps but I don't foresee any issues.


After the repair, I ran the car a good bit and made sure the cooler was flowing then changed the oil. Also changed the transmission fluid again after driving it a bit. Just drained the pan and refilled. Will likely do that again in the near future just to clean out what's left of the nasty fluid that was in it.

Anyways.. very happy with how it's coming along. It runs super smooth and drives amazing. Can't wait to get the springs replaced and fix a few loose suspension items. I ordered front wheel bearings and ball joints too.

Little by little getting it back to how it should be.

Don't forget to drain the torque converter ! it acts like a centrifugal filter and you'll get more crud out of it .

Takes a 5MM allen tool to remove the plug, I just did my 300TD's and there was grayish crud on the nose of the plug .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Planning on doing that on the next fluid change.

Started gutting the interior today as my new interior parts should be in later this week. Back seat was mostly destroyed. Seat bottom is ~marginal.. seat back was garbage. Kept the arm rest and bottom to clean up and resell for someone needing a good frame.

Also received my tint film. Going to start that project in the next day or 2.

I'm also getting ready to pull the climate control panel and may relocate some of the switches. The panel is damaged from the previous owner installing a radio with no idea how to actually remove the panel. The wood is trashed and the panel itself is broken. I'm planning on taking some measurements and 3d printing a replacement panel to relocate the switches and allow for the installation of a android based tablet/radio. We'll see. Not in a huge rush to start on the in car entertainment as I'd like to take my time with it.

Anyways, I'll get some pictures as I gut the interior over the next few days. Will tint the windows while the door panels and such are out.

Plate came in...



Also did some work on the back glass. The glass is de-laminated and trashed. I'm planning on tinting the windows anyways so I tinted the back glass using a SPRAY ON tint. Lol. Oddly, it worked okay and hid the nastyness in the corners of the glass. Will it last? Probably not... but it's fine for now. I'll be keeping my eyes open for a good rear glass. I've done this on one other car that was a complete POS. No issues after a few months and I sold it. Who knows.. might last.

Interior parts arrived today. Got some cleaning to do. I'll post pics of the good tonight if I get a chance.

Also hoping to get the new springs in the rear and spring rubbers all around in this weekend also.

We'll see! The interior is going to make a huge difference.

Some progress made!

Pile of parts...


Old rear springs and buffers out..




New springs in...


New back seat in place... MUCH better.


Back end is still sitting too low. Thats with the thickest pads and new springs. Going to retrofit some air shocks to the rear so I can keep the ride quality... but bump up the air when I need to carry extra weight. I'll retain the stock shocks but will add some mount tabs to the top of the control arms near the base of the springs and make some mounts that will weld in to the trunk floor. Should be pretty simple and should make it easy to maintain a fairly level ride no matter what is in the trunk or if I ever decide to pull my little utility trailer with the car as it has a hitch already.

Anyways... more to come.

That brake hose looks to be a little bit too short.....

That's a beautiful rear seat ! .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better