90s German tat. R129, W124, W201, Mk1 Golf.
Discussion
Stegel said:
Great progress on all fronts, and you were so lucky to find that Sacco panel - I spent ages inspecting 800m of road outside the house in a fruitless search for a locking wheel bolt socket I’d stupidly left on a bolt. Fortunately I could simply buy a replacement.
I also concur with your approach of one car down at a time - I’ve lost sight of this recently, but am one corroded brake pipe away from having two down, and hope to be one down within a few weeks.
Thanks, I did recently reach a point where her car and my van were both off the road. Fortunately she would use the 190 and I’d use one of the Golfs instead but I can only imagine how annoying it would have been if nothing was useable.I also concur with your approach of one car down at a time - I’ve lost sight of this recently, but am one corroded brake pipe away from having two down, and hope to be one down within a few weeks.
My van went in to Mercedes for a squeal at the rear, they told me that the brake pad spring had rusted causing the pad to glaze. Bit of an argument and they covered it under warranty. Went to collect and the ABS pump had failed, not sure it’s a coincidence or just bad luck.
Same for the Q7, wasn’t sure if it was bad luck or coincidence but it went in for an oil cooler which is a pig of a job as it’s right in the middle of the V. Job was done and then it ran but started knocking, garage wasn’t sure if the oil cooler had seeped water in to it, we came to an agreement and the engine is being rebuilt.
We’ve owned it from new and no intention of buying anything else so rebuilding was the sensible if not the economical thing to do.
Yeah it looks f-ing great doesn’t it! Bumpers, skirts and Sacco panels being painted tomorrow. Should be a more or less complete car by Friday. Just in time for the summer 😂
Also managed to snag a stainless exhaust off eBay, not fussed on the tail pipes but it has 3 boxes so should be fairly quiet, I’ll get the AMG square tips welded on to it.
A few more weeks and this should wrap up pretty much a 2 year resto.
As always I get really busy over the Christmas period and neglect to meaningfully update.
As is always the case with something like this it’s one step forward and two steps back.
Brand new alternator is now only giving 9v. This could be why even though all the modules work the roof doesn’t work as the roof is very sensitive to the voltage, it won’t work when the voltage is low and the engine has a vacuum system where it increases the revs at idle when you operate the roof.
The side lights and headlights don’t work, the indicators and reverse lights do. Unrelated to the alternator and it’s probably something relatively simple.
The rear wheel bearings have collapsed, bad quality part? Installed incorrectly? Stress to say I had the hubs powder coated and then new bearings pressed in by a local garage not the garage (187 Automotive) doing the resto, 187 are now going to sort this themselves.
The engine has to come out because of a hairline crack in the sump. Wasn’t expecting this at all but it’s one of those things.
And the fuel pumps are always running rather than prime and stop.
Will get to the bottom of it all eventually, it’s just a bit of a kick after we thought it was all done. I am glad that they are picking up on all this right now rather than getting the car back and realising it’s got an oil leak for instance.
There’s no real blame to proportion here, it is what it is and there’s always going to be snagging in a big resto and they are doing what they should by making sure it’s all resolved before I have the car back for the summer.
I also part ex’d my bike for a new GSA1250.
Not a great deal to report about it yet as I’m still running it in, it’s a great deal more high tech than my z900rs was, I’ve been off-road a little bit with it and it’s much much more capable than I am.
As is always the case with something like this it’s one step forward and two steps back.
Brand new alternator is now only giving 9v. This could be why even though all the modules work the roof doesn’t work as the roof is very sensitive to the voltage, it won’t work when the voltage is low and the engine has a vacuum system where it increases the revs at idle when you operate the roof.
The side lights and headlights don’t work, the indicators and reverse lights do. Unrelated to the alternator and it’s probably something relatively simple.
The rear wheel bearings have collapsed, bad quality part? Installed incorrectly? Stress to say I had the hubs powder coated and then new bearings pressed in by a local garage not the garage (187 Automotive) doing the resto, 187 are now going to sort this themselves.
The engine has to come out because of a hairline crack in the sump. Wasn’t expecting this at all but it’s one of those things.
And the fuel pumps are always running rather than prime and stop.
Will get to the bottom of it all eventually, it’s just a bit of a kick after we thought it was all done. I am glad that they are picking up on all this right now rather than getting the car back and realising it’s got an oil leak for instance.
There’s no real blame to proportion here, it is what it is and there’s always going to be snagging in a big resto and they are doing what they should by making sure it’s all resolved before I have the car back for the summer.
I also part ex’d my bike for a new GSA1250.
Not a great deal to report about it yet as I’m still running it in, it’s a great deal more high tech than my z900rs was, I’ve been off-road a little bit with it and it’s much much more capable than I am.
Update from garage.
Fixed the Main issues and a few more
- all the lights now work - was mainly fuse box and fuses. Cleaned up and replaced most fuses - for the whole car not just lights
- alternator wasn’t charging- the guy who built the engine powder coated the alternator bracket and wasn’t allowing it to find an earth. Added a new earth strap and works a treat now - cleaned up all earths too so pretty much everything works - looks like roof has sprung into life but we will play with that, no guarantees just yet.
- pump always running - someone ran a constant live to the fuel pump relay so it wouldn’t prime and turn off. - had to strip all the ecus out and repair the wiring - works perfect now.
Still lots of testing on the electrics but I think we have got away with murder considering how the car came in!
A real positive this evening!
Amazing how life passes by and you forget to update stuff. Long story short the A124 is finished. Sort of. As always there is stuff to still improve and this year has been fixing silly stuff like the seat belt extenders, new stereo system (alpine headunit & gladen speakers), stainless exhaust etc etc. I did around 1000 miles in it last summer and so far I’ve done approx 500 miles. Other vehicles have been purchased which have limited its use - along with the terrible weather we’ve been having so far this year!
Currently the back seat is out while I wait for a new solenoid that activates the lock on the back seats when you’re driving.
I’ve also bought some genuine amg aero 3 split rim faces and I’ve ordered barrels and lips to make them up as 8’s and 9’s. The factory setup would have been 7.5 all round, the current monoblock wheels are 7.5 & 8.5 so a tiny bit more aggressive and will be the finishing touch for the AMG kit.
That brings this up to date.
Currently the back seat is out while I wait for a new solenoid that activates the lock on the back seats when you’re driving.
I’ve also bought some genuine amg aero 3 split rim faces and I’ve ordered barrels and lips to make them up as 8’s and 9’s. The factory setup would have been 7.5 all round, the current monoblock wheels are 7.5 & 8.5 so a tiny bit more aggressive and will be the finishing touch for the AMG kit.
That brings this up to date.
After the issues with my van I sold it and last July bought a sensible saloon instead. Its adequate. Pretty frugal for what it is, suspension/ride quality isn’t as bad as it’s claimed to be, servicing is ferociously expensive 😂. It’s also surprisingly discreet even, no one really notices it. With the exhaust valves open you often find people looking past it to see what the super car is and then back to you with a look of disappointment.
And introducing this. A 97 986, 2.5, silver/red. 95k miles.
I was talking to some friends and it dawned on me what a bargain 986’s currently are. The conversation was broadly along the line of what can you buy for 3k? MX5’s & MR2’s are more money than what I paid for this.
Idea sown in my head, I started looking for one, went to see one for £3600 and it was three different shades of silver but it was silver/red and it cemented in my mind that I wanted one, even though I didn’t drive it as it was so rough. Back home I was browsing the usual suspects, FB marketplace & eBay and I came across this car. Advertised pretty poorly by a trader with minimum information with a roof fault that had been diagnosed as needing a new roof mechanism. I phoned the chap and spoke to him, he’d had lots of messages via eBay but I was the first to pick up the phone and speak to him. A deal was reasonably quickly agreed, deposit paid and a WhatsApp video sent to show its condition. It looked surprisingly straight and one shade of silver.
It was also the other end of the country to me so I paid for the car and transport and waited for it to turn up. When it did turn up I quickly checked the codes on the sticker under the bonnet and it showed codes for the M030 pack which is the sports suspension and limited slip diff. Result. No heated seats but I can live with out those I suppose. The following day after lots of YouTube watching I went to disconnect the roof ball joints so that I could operate it manually and see if the mechanism was seized. I moved the passenger seat forward and found 2 brand new pry tools, result again. Checked the mechanism and found all but one ball joint had been popped off, using the free tools I popped the last joint off and put the roof down manually. It wasn’t perfect but it showed the mechanism worked
As you can see the clamshell sits proud like this. But it worked which was great. Upon checking the motor that was also working, you could hear it whirring back and fore so that was also a positive.
A bit more YouTubing and asking some questions in the FB groups led me to a video in French with English subtitles which explained how to fix the roof. Lo and behold, after a few hours I now have a working electrically operated roof. Still needed a bit of fettling and I believe the rear clam shell switch is a bit intermittent but I can live with it for now.
Still has a couple of other niggles to resolve but nothing too drastic that stops me for using it. And for sub £3k I don’t think you can get anything else this enjoyable and fun to drive.
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