Ownership Verified: My slow project: 1975 W115 220 D

How do these things drive? Like a truck? I always love the look of the w115, hopefully i can own one soon. :) nice car btw

I have driven the car on road for like 2 km at maximum speed of 60 km/h, so not much to tell yet. Nothing complicated (after you get the thing started, see the video on previous page) in driving, controls work just like in more modern cars and weight helps to make things more stable. These were meant to be driven on autobahn for hours at maximum speed (135 km/h) with comfort, and I can already see that.

Did some snow drifting the other day, and the lack of power steering + really much rotations on the steering wheel lock to lock + huuuuuge steering wheel make drifting quite a handful. :mrgreen: A LOT of steering needed.
 
Do not! This is a performance model for those who needed to go faster than 130 km/h 200 D offered.
 
I came across some old Finnish car ads from this era recently and some of them had to have been scans from a magazine for taxi drivers because they advertised things like mileage, front bench seat, remote trunk release and so forth.

Apparently, the state of the art at the time was the 2.1 liter Indenor developing 75 hp. Not bad for a naturally aspirated diesel in the 1970's. Peugeot used it in the 504 and 404 of course, Indenor was their company. But even Toyota tried to compete on the taxi market with an Indenor-powered Crown 2100 Diesel. Both Peugeot and Toyota advertised a top speed of "over 135 km/h".

And to not completely derail the thread, here's a 1971 advert for the W115 220D. :) The ad claimed that even in Helsinki with its diverse taxi market, Mercedes' market share was over twice as large as anyone elses. And for 1971, the taxi diesel version got a heated rear windscreen.

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Haven't had time to work on this yet, but MOT will run out in the end of June, so before that things must happen. This has been re-registered at some point in the past, which has resulted changed registration number. Luckily the old number had not been used again since, so I ordered new plates with old numbers, so in the end this will look as close as possible to what it looked like after it was first registered in 1975.

I also bought a set of crappy (cheap) alloys:



Then sent them to be soda blasted and repainted. Received them today and got new tires mounted. They look a bit different, I must say. :D

 
Replaced the hideous duct tape repaired steering wheel, a lot better now.



Declared this on the road use this morning, and drove this actually for the first time ever properly. This is simply awesome to drive, apart from the noise it would really compete with big 90's saloons in driving comfort. No need to steer on straight, super easy to drive. Of course the 60 mightly horses make driving a different kind of sports :) My daughter asked few hundred meters from the first intersection, "why are you driving so slow", not quite understanding I already was going as fast as possible. :lol:

I drove directly to a drive-in oil change shop and got an change of all the oils done. Replaced engine oil, transmission oil (looked like recently changed), differential oil (not too old these either), added oil to the oil bath air filter (which was totally dry) and cleaned the sump. The same problem was with the diesel pump, which should have oil but didn't. Good thing I did this first and didn't drive more.

The aftermarket temperature gauge got only to 60?C during 15 km drive, I must double check if it works correctly or is the engine running actually too cold.
 
Very nice, hope you're enjoying the "relaxed" motoring :)

At some point in my life I have to get another one of these, and actually get to the point you're at :D
 
Thanks, I really am enjoying. Driving this needs a total adjustment of mindset. 60 hp is totally enough to drive around town and keeping up with the traffic pace. It really can go at surprisingly low revs, third gear can be used from almost walking speed up to 80 km/h.

Windshield washer does not work. It had detached hoses when I bought this, and new hoses in the trunk. I installed them yesterday, but still nothing comes to windscreen. The pump does run, but fluids don't move... Grr, this is a MOT failure actually if the inspector wants to be mean. And anyway it would be quite a handy thing to work... The pump seems to be an aftermarket part, or at least looks like it, so replacing shouldn't be an issue.
 
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Old naturally aspirated diesels can go really, really low in revs without bogging down. The Toyota Hiace 2.4D we had at work didn't care, you could start from second gear without problem etc.

I also forgot the clutch while putting it into reverse once. :lol: It chirped the rear tires (with a terrible CLUNK from the gearbox) and started creeping backwards.
 
Haven't had time to work on this yet, but MOT will run out in the end of June, so before that things must happen. This has been re-registered at some point in the past, which has resulted changed registration number. Luckily the old number had not been used again since, so I ordered new plates with old numbers, so in the end this will look as close as possible to what it looked like after it was first registered in 1975.

Got the plates yesterday, and even a task this simple can be f*cked by bureaucracy. In the old days inspection due date was depending on the last number of license plate. This means the original plate KBE-810 would suggest due date of December, and the plates this car has (KEA-475) meant end of June. When ordering the plates I specifically asked the MOT center that will the due date change or not, and they said it wont matter anymore... Which naturally was utterly wrong answer.

I checked the car info on the Trafi (government) web service, and it had big red lettering: "INSPECTION OVERDUE, DRIVING BAN"... A bit frustrated I went back to the inspection center and they were like :whistle: and I was like :hammer:. I could have ordered the KEA-475 again, and maybe the due date would have been returned, but that sounded stupid.

Why this was an issue, is that the car wasn't actually in a MOT passable condition due the not-functioning heater fan and windshield washer system. MXM then mentioned that the fan requirement can be passed with a simple external fan, so I bought this:



A cigarette lighter heater/fan. 9.90 ? for that. First the heater started smelling and smoking, so I had to drive 30 km more to get a new one... But the second one actually worked.

Next problem was the windscreen washers that did not work. I replaced some hoses in case the old ones would leak air and that way screws up the vacuum.

Video

After I finally got the fluids to go to the pump, it started to work just fine. This was quite a relief since now I did not know anything that would cause a failure in MOT, so I reserved an inspection time for this morning to give it a try.

And this means BIG FAT YES:



No written complaints, but tie rod is a bit loose, but not enough to cause a note. But needs to be replaced anyway. Also two tiny holes was found, one in driver side wheel arch on the inside and one in the rocker panel. Nothing serious, so now I have time until the end of year to get things sorted, as the car is again road legal.
 
The radio wasn't quite period correct:


Original Becker radios cost an arm and a leg, so I decided to go with anything period correct. I found a Philips from maybe the 70's, for just 25 ? shipped, so that will do for now:



It works and looks like it belongs, so I'm happy for now.
 
Waxed and cleaned for tomorrow road trip to Lahti Classic Motorshow. Paintwork is pretty terrible, but who cares, I love to drive this. :lol:





The old paper speakers had a zillion holes in them, so I replaced the elements, but reused the old covers to hide the too-modern speakers.

 
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Waxed and cleaned for tomorrow road trip to Lahti Classic Motorshow. Paintwork is pretty terrible, but who cares, I love to drive this. :lol:


Oh man how I love this. This picture alone just made me lose half an hour on mobile.de, just to realise how prices are just going up and up and cheap and old Benzes aren't a thing anymore. :( Not even the W123, since everyone of these can have historical plates now. Can't remember what price your ad said but I remember it being very low. :|

I think the bad paint and the weird interior make this car so attractive; better than a well-kept all-original or even restored model. Just a nice car to have a good time in without worrying to much. And that's fantastic.
 
Thanks. I paid 2200 ? for it, probably around 4000 ? invested in it currently including basic maintenance, tires and wheels. I agree, as this is far from perfect, I don't have bad conscience for driving it around. It does the job brilliantly, and looks pretty good as long as you don't look too closely. :lol: And now with the interior swap completed (apart from dashboard), I don't have to be ashamed of the interior either. After I get the heater working and dashboard swapped, this is pretty much as far as it can go without a complete restoration project.
 
I agree, as this is far from perfect, I don't have bad conscience for driving it around.

As Jay Leno always points out - it's nice to have a car that wears all its scratches and dents with pride to show its history and where you can lean on with your rivetet jeans without worrying. :)
 
You can spot my N13-Sunny there too... if they let me in. :lol:
 
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Awesome day at the show, and we had a good FinalGear showing :) The Merc seems to be a tough old nail, and the quality still shows after all these years.
 
Is this the infamous Finnish FinalGear classic car in base model-trim-meet? :)
 
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