My 1989 Mercedes 560 SEC

Whoa, that was a lot of work. Great to see somebody wants to take good care of it, it's gonna be worth it :)
 
thanks guise! 8)
B, I know what you mean about plans coming together. :) It's still one of my dream scenarios to do up a real project car some day, I guess this is sorta a prelude to that!
 
The groundhog has spoken and supposedly we're to have a dry week. So, I went and gave the miamivicemobile a bath.

216336_10150167226189153_675134152_6445596_1245527_n.jpg


215788_10150167226359153_675134152_6445597_7945102_n.jpg


Also, first home car wash of 2011, yay! :p
It was a rush job, it's still pretty cold when you're handling lots of water.
 
The groundhog has spoken and supposedly we're to have a dry week. So, I went and gave the miamivicemobile a bath.

<a big merc>

Also, first home car wash of 2011, yay! :p
It was a rush job, it's still pretty cold when you're handling lots of water.

For some weird reason, I prefer the car covered in old mud D:
 
Went to have a little photoshoot, enjoy:






Have been dailydriving the car to uni lately, seems to get pretty good gas mileage with the new improved valve job / compression. Got less than 14,5 l/100km on the last tank in urban driving, even pretty heavyfooted driving at times.
 
I think when you live in finland cameras just do that :p
 
I don't care what causes it, but I like it.
The pictures match the car perfectly, and what a car it is.
 
This is the kind of car that I've always wanted but have never been sure that I can handle ownership of. Mad props to you for sticking to it and making it into what it is now.
 
I purposedly gave the pics a red tint for a change. I like to do that whenever I take pics through PSP. Raw pics around here usually have a blue or green tint depending on camera. Those pics were shot with my iPhone so I had to beat them with a lot of filters to make them look decent (or artsyfartsy, if you prefer).

- Land brightness and contrast fix
- Overall brightness and contrast fix
- Red hue
- Extra saturation
- Unsharp mask
- Rotate
- Distortion correct
- Crop.

The iPhone is particularly bad when it comes to accidental tinting. Usually every shot I make in the dark comes out green.
 
Yeah, the resemblance to period-correct photography is based on image properties that are actually genuine, not only eye trickery. These are the digital sharpening and prevalent color wash and saturation modifications which are done in most cases of film photography digitalization. In addition to noise and light wash-out of course, which are inherent to both film photography and cellphone cameras.

Of course, the absence of mood-breaking modern details does its part for the resemblance...
 
Last edited:
Have you considered getting new registration plates? Only 21 eur, not necessarily with an EU tag and they sharpen up the appearance lots.
 
Yes I have, new screws also (front plate looks funny with one fully rusted out screw and one decent screw). Just haven't gotten round to it yet.
 
Been a while since last update. Nothing much to report, just small stuff.

Went to a shop with an exhaust gas analyzer to have a base fuel mixture setup done. Turns out the car was running way lean, which was causing a low-rpm misfire on a cold engine, and high-rpm misfire on a warm engine.

On a KE-Jetronic engine such as this M117, you're supposed to have the mixture on a good base setting, and the engine's electronic brains set the mixture just so on all rpm's. So, basically it's very easy to set up, you just need the analyzer to do it, you're probably not going to get it right by feel. We hooked it up to the machine and added fuel till it was producing between 0,5 and 2,0 % CO. Neutral idle RPMs went up 200 rpm, and D-idle stayed at 600-ish which is in the ballpark where it should be.

Went to the strip last Saturday. Did 15,53 sec on quarter mile. However, the car was still not running right. It should do a bit better on the quarter mile and I got a really bad misfire above 5000 rpm on WOT. This prevented me from going faster than 170 kph. I'm hoping new spark plugs and adjusting the mixture further into the rich side will fix this.

A few weeks ago I busted the accelerator pedal. Turns out a plastic hinge behind the pedal, which connects to the throttle assembly, has a habit of breaking even as often as every few years. It's not an expensive fix (15 EUR for an original part you can install yourself in 5 mins) but it was annoying till I got the new part. The pedal would slide off the throttle assembly, causing it to jam in a slightly open or completely closed position. Interestingly, the gas pedal in a W126 is a W123 part, probably the same one used in all Mercs of the 70s through early 90s period.

Finally received my new license plate. The old plate had been bent into a V shape in two directions and was screwed directly into the front bumper. It looked like shit tbh. One of the screws was completely rusted and one looked new. My aim here was to bend the new plate as little as possible while mounting it slightly lower than the old plate. Above the spot in the bumper where the plate is supposed to go, there's a step where the plate "valley" ends and the top part of the bumper begins, IIRC the old plate was mounted over that step. I wanted the new plate to go a bit lower, where it's supposed to.

So, bought a plate holder, sawed off a bit where the EU flag is supposed to go, screwed the holder onto the bumper, and mounted the plate. There's about 15mm worth of padding between the plate holder and bumper, at each end. By taking off some of that padding I could adjust the V angle of the plate holder. I'm just not sure how much of that I can do without the plate and plate holder screwholes no longer lining up.

Anyway, here's the new plate.

kilpi1.jpg

kilpi2.jpg

kilpi3.jpg


Also, I had the issue with the sunroof switch where the up and down (sunroof tilt) directions would not work, and the way to get the sunroof in that position was to keep pressing the switch in the "closed" direction till the tilt-position was up. And repeat to close the tilt position. Problem with this, in addition to it not working like it should obviously, was that it was impossible to know for sure when the sunroof was completely sealed, since there was no noticeable step between the two "open" positions.

I'd prepared myself for a wiring issue, but this turned out to be as simple a fix as resetting the sunroof motor in the trunk. You put it in neutral, spin a wheel and put it in gear until it works right from the switch. The wheel was a couple revolutions wrong. Like I said, easy fix thanks to the internet.

As for other things in the near future,
- Spark plugs soonish
- Monday I'm going to have the A/C inspected. It's not blowing cold, so first need to make sure it's not completely broken and then fill it up.
- Also on that date, will arrange for the tailpipes (last 30 or so cm of the exhaust) redone
- Car is going in for a machine buffing on July 6th.
 
Last edited:
Top