'96 Mercedes 124 E320T!
Discussion
A couple of months back I made a rather impromptu purchase of a 1996 Mercedes S124 E320T.
I'd wanted a 124 estate for a while and this was spec'd with the mushroom leather (the best interior available IMO), climate control and the late 3.2 I6 24V motor with a full years MOT. These are now starting to get a bit thin on the ground, so when I saw this for shed money, I was basically sold. As I was in shed territory, I decided to tick a few more boxes on the petrolhead bucket list. That included buying from Scotland, sight unseen, with nearly 200k on the ODO, no service history for the last 80k, oh yes and with no registration documentation.
I took a flight up to Edinburgh (no return booked, naturally) to confirm the car existed, was largely as documented and hopefully drive it away... to Cambridge. The nice chap, Andrew, who was selling the car picked me up in his R129 SL500 (good sign) from the airport, and we made the journey out to his lockup. The car looked like it hadn't been started in a few weeks, had two flat tyres, missing the Merc badge and generally was a bit sorry for itself. We duly pumped them up, had a cursory inspection, started her up and drove round the yard. I paid the taxi, had a 5 minute chat with my insurance company, paid Andrew and I was now in charge of this lovely old barge.
Part of the deal was to include a pump, spare set of CLK wheels with tyres and jumper cables. We loaded up the ample boot and with less than 100 meters of proof that it ran, I was on my merry way back to Cambridge; a snip at 450 miles
And you know what; it was absolutely flawless. I kept pace "wafty" as the vision of having a massive blowout with the crusty tyres did prey on my mind. Ok yes, I did have to stop once an hour to confirm the tyres weren't deteriorating any more and to give them a few extra PSI and when the darkness drew in around 6pm, I was moderately concerned to find absolutely no dash illumination(!), but hey, the headlights did work. I stuck my phone torch on, kind of perched it next to the instrumentation and soldiered on.
Finally arrive closer to the 10pm than 6pm I originally expected. Call it a night. The next morning I wake up, and this is sat out front
I'd wanted a 124 estate for a while and this was spec'd with the mushroom leather (the best interior available IMO), climate control and the late 3.2 I6 24V motor with a full years MOT. These are now starting to get a bit thin on the ground, so when I saw this for shed money, I was basically sold. As I was in shed territory, I decided to tick a few more boxes on the petrolhead bucket list. That included buying from Scotland, sight unseen, with nearly 200k on the ODO, no service history for the last 80k, oh yes and with no registration documentation.
I took a flight up to Edinburgh (no return booked, naturally) to confirm the car existed, was largely as documented and hopefully drive it away... to Cambridge. The nice chap, Andrew, who was selling the car picked me up in his R129 SL500 (good sign) from the airport, and we made the journey out to his lockup. The car looked like it hadn't been started in a few weeks, had two flat tyres, missing the Merc badge and generally was a bit sorry for itself. We duly pumped them up, had a cursory inspection, started her up and drove round the yard. I paid the taxi, had a 5 minute chat with my insurance company, paid Andrew and I was now in charge of this lovely old barge.
Part of the deal was to include a pump, spare set of CLK wheels with tyres and jumper cables. We loaded up the ample boot and with less than 100 meters of proof that it ran, I was on my merry way back to Cambridge; a snip at 450 miles
And you know what; it was absolutely flawless. I kept pace "wafty" as the vision of having a massive blowout with the crusty tyres did prey on my mind. Ok yes, I did have to stop once an hour to confirm the tyres weren't deteriorating any more and to give them a few extra PSI and when the darkness drew in around 6pm, I was moderately concerned to find absolutely no dash illumination(!), but hey, the headlights did work. I stuck my phone torch on, kind of perched it next to the instrumentation and soldiered on.
Finally arrive closer to the 10pm than 6pm I originally expected. Call it a night. The next morning I wake up, and this is sat out front
Thanks folks!
Another discovery on the way back was the absolutely lack of any damping to speak off. It takes quite a few bounces to settle after any bump, oops! I'm pretty certain this just means new spheres, which should be under £100 to fix. The previous owner has had the rear SLS (Self Levelling Suspension) pipework renewed, new front strut mount, front springs, front brake lines and put a new rear silencer on the car. The radio also had a mind of its own and decided it would or wouldn't play CDs at will, sounded terrible and had a fading display.
I've done a few bits on the car so far. The first thing I did was to give her an oil change, and pick up some OEM coolant although I haven't done that flush yet.
The next bit of work was to remedy the lack of dash illumination, which was making night driving an "experience". I confirmed it wasn't the fuse, as some research revealed the door buzzer was on the same circuit, which worked as expected. The most likely cause looked to be failure of the dimmer potentiometer for the dash and centre console illumination, so I got a new one ordered from my local MB parts department (who has some fans of S124
). The cluster is a bit of a pig to get out, especially as I didn't feel like waiting for delivery of the MB tool which slots down the side and allows you to pull it out. You also have to pull up the carpet and release the speedo cable in order to get enough movement to disconnect it from the back of the cluster.
Free the speedo cable by removing the bracket.
Dead dimmer pot
Next was to remedy the horrible Sony XPLOD spaceship head unit, which as described, functioned 20% of the time.
I opted to fit the perfectly good Pioneer unit which I swapped out from my Corrado in order to fit a iPhone Alpine unit.
It sounds WAY better, looks the part and the automated aerial now rises as expected, result!
Further tinkering has also revealed that the car has had replacement lower control arms at some point, but they look to be the early W124 type which are 5mm or so wider, so were rubbing against the front brake dust shield causing a funny noise on full lock. This was remedied with tin snips
The benefit of the early control arms is that the ball joints are replaceable, so I might change them as a matter of course as I'm aware these can fail and it's catastrophic if they do.
I'm also sure it's had new front wings at some point as they have zero rust. The colour matches very well.
Polynesian said:
what are your plans for it? Shed life or a bit of restoration/ improvement? Interested to see how you get on, and what you get up to with it.
I intended this to be a shed, but it really is a lovely thing. I do have a Corrado without an engine sitting on my drive though, so I don't think I'll be tackling anything too drastic on the Mercedes until I've finished the rebuild on that.Another discovery on the way back was the absolutely lack of any damping to speak off. It takes quite a few bounces to settle after any bump, oops! I'm pretty certain this just means new spheres, which should be under £100 to fix. The previous owner has had the rear SLS (Self Levelling Suspension) pipework renewed, new front strut mount, front springs, front brake lines and put a new rear silencer on the car. The radio also had a mind of its own and decided it would or wouldn't play CDs at will, sounded terrible and had a fading display.
I've done a few bits on the car so far. The first thing I did was to give her an oil change, and pick up some OEM coolant although I haven't done that flush yet.
The next bit of work was to remedy the lack of dash illumination, which was making night driving an "experience". I confirmed it wasn't the fuse, as some research revealed the door buzzer was on the same circuit, which worked as expected. The most likely cause looked to be failure of the dimmer potentiometer for the dash and centre console illumination, so I got a new one ordered from my local MB parts department (who has some fans of S124
). The cluster is a bit of a pig to get out, especially as I didn't feel like waiting for delivery of the MB tool which slots down the side and allows you to pull it out. You also have to pull up the carpet and release the speedo cable in order to get enough movement to disconnect it from the back of the cluster.Free the speedo cable by removing the bracket.
Dead dimmer pot
Next was to remedy the horrible Sony XPLOD spaceship head unit, which as described, functioned 20% of the time.
I opted to fit the perfectly good Pioneer unit which I swapped out from my Corrado in order to fit a iPhone Alpine unit.
It sounds WAY better, looks the part and the automated aerial now rises as expected, result!
Further tinkering has also revealed that the car has had replacement lower control arms at some point, but they look to be the early W124 type which are 5mm or so wider, so were rubbing against the front brake dust shield causing a funny noise on full lock. This was remedied with tin snips
The benefit of the early control arms is that the ball joints are replaceable, so I might change them as a matter of course as I'm aware these can fail and it's catastrophic if they do.I'm also sure it's had new front wings at some point as they have zero rust. The colour matches very well.
harrykul said:
Great intro. I think that I was looking at this car to nick the interior from it!
Look forward to hearing more updates
Thanks! Haha, it definitely makes the car. I think the previous owner had intended to break it, nab some bits for his other S124 and sell on the rest, but couldn't quite bring himself to do it.Look forward to hearing more updates
Appreciate all the love for the car. It doesn't get the more immediate reaction of the Corrado out and about, but there's a definitely a passionate bunch of 124 folks out there, and certainly here it looks like
The other thing I've recently tackled was replacing the two rather haggard looking tyres. They looked ok-ish from the outside, but as I mentioned, I had some concerns about them. Well, that was confirmed when I got round to inspecting the back, slightly more concerned was that despite largely wafting back from Scotland, I had used all the ponies to dispatch a tailgating Insignia diesel something and in hindsight reached a rather sketchy speed with the condition of the tyres now known. Eek!
Some rather verbose sounding "Dunlop Sport BluResponse" received very good reviews and were just £45 a corner from my local tyre place, so on they went.
And of course, the most important piece of the puzzle, I treated the car to a brand new Mercedes badge. This surprisingly makes a world of difference when driving the car. Seeing it out of the corner of your eye whilst wafting along is just so oddly satisfying!
It was at this point I texted a local Corrado pal to brag about my new purchase. "It's a 90s barge, estate and 3.2L engine" I tempted him with. Then out of the blue he replied "No way, I've just made an impromptu purchase too. 90s, inline 5, estate".
So we had the inaugural local 1996 Estate Club meet on my drive. Here's his choice next to mine.
A Volvo 840 2.5! Both resplendent with headlight washers, although he may have made the better deal as the Volvo cost about the same, with 100k miles less on it and FSH
I took a visit down to a friend's classic meet in West London, another 250 mile round trip. I didn't get many good pics from the day, but she cleaned up surprisingly well.
It's also become apparent she doesn't really fit in conventional parking bays
S3_Graham said:
Almost exactly the same as mine but mine was an earlier 300TE24. brilliant cars arent they! Did you pick this up from Retro Rides? I also very nearly bit the bullet. enjoy!
That's the one! I was umming and arring and then I just thought sod it, there's probably not many more chances to get one for so cheap, despite the high miles and some shabby bits.The other thing I've recently tackled was replacing the two rather haggard looking tyres. They looked ok-ish from the outside, but as I mentioned, I had some concerns about them. Well, that was confirmed when I got round to inspecting the back, slightly more concerned was that despite largely wafting back from Scotland, I had used all the ponies to dispatch a tailgating Insignia diesel something and in hindsight reached a rather sketchy speed with the condition of the tyres now known. Eek!
Some rather verbose sounding "Dunlop Sport BluResponse" received very good reviews and were just £45 a corner from my local tyre place, so on they went.
And of course, the most important piece of the puzzle, I treated the car to a brand new Mercedes badge. This surprisingly makes a world of difference when driving the car. Seeing it out of the corner of your eye whilst wafting along is just so oddly satisfying!
It was at this point I texted a local Corrado pal to brag about my new purchase. "It's a 90s barge, estate and 3.2L engine" I tempted him with. Then out of the blue he replied "No way, I've just made an impromptu purchase too. 90s, inline 5, estate".
So we had the inaugural local 1996 Estate Club meet on my drive. Here's his choice next to mine.
A Volvo 840 2.5! Both resplendent with headlight washers, although he may have made the better deal as the Volvo cost about the same, with 100k miles less on it and FSH
I took a visit down to a friend's classic meet in West London, another 250 mile round trip. I didn't get many good pics from the day, but she cleaned up surprisingly well.
It's also become apparent she doesn't really fit in conventional parking bays
lockhart flawse said:
Loved it and planned to keep it long-term but it succumbed to head gasket failure as so many do. I found the Mercedes Part Centre in London to be a good source of new and SH parts. Labour there can be cheap too.
Thanks for the shout on the parts place, I'll be sure to check it out.I believe the headgasket has been done on this, as I'm sure it'd have gone pop well before 180k. The exhaust manifolds are also in very good condition and have a logo on (which I can't remember exactly off the top of my head) which has only been on parts which are less than 10 years old. I was sure to check around the gasket for any sign of oil or corrosion from a coolant leak, which seems surprisingly clean, too. Oil pressure gauge (which I *love* came from factory on these) seems rock solid at 3bar on the move and nothing on the drive or change to the oil level (so far...
). I went into it know I wouldn't be too adverse to doing the headgasket myself if it did fail though, given my recent experience dealing with this on my Corrado, eew.
Now, the loom may be another story, but again, with the use of this in Scotland, up to 180k, it's possible this has been sorted. There's also rumblings that the loom was fixed for the final model year, although that could be Internet hearsay.
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