My 1989 Mercedes 560 SEC

Great car, congrats, I think tho the 'Miami Vice' reference is a little off since that wasn't really a signature car in the show, it was mostly about convertible sports cars. Just a little american TV cultural correction.
 
Well, depends :p Sure, there were numerous convertibles including Crockett's Daytona (and non-sports cars like Switek's and Tubbs' rides). However, in fairness, a lot of the baddies and undercover work were in W126s since it was the period S-Class. The SEC in particular has a special place in my heart as the car Tubbs drove to his meet with Al Lombard. That's the basis for this thread title. :)


BTW, unrelated to this, but I just thought of a pic I was supposed to post. Which you might find interesting...

IMG_1160.jpg


A pretty much mint SLC on the left, my SEC on the right. :D
 
Last edited:
Wow, the SLC looks underfed and dainty next to the SEC.
 
I've been thinking about the rear light clusters with clear indicators and I'm drifting more and more towards getting rid of them, and in search of options for the front indicators. Well, I was on the internet and I found this! A mint W124 500E with some interesting looking front indicators.

500e1992041.jpg


500e1992007.jpg


500e1992006.jpg


I think those would look great with the OEM rear light clusters and orange wing indicators, while still making the front look awesome head-on. However, I've no idea where to get those orange-strip ones. If anyone has seen them somewhere for the W126, please let me know. Otherwise I'm even verging towards buying some new clear indicators (15 euros a pop or something to that effect) and having them painted, if that's in any way possible.
There are plenty of those on ebay for W124 and newer Merc's but none for the W126.
http://motors.shop.ebay.com/i.html?..._osacat=33708&bkBtn=&_trksid=p4506.m270.l1313

You bought the wrong Merc.
 
Awesome car. Somehow, I love the look of the current AMG wheels.
 
Well, here's a little picture update on the Merc. It's been in the shop for 2,5 weeks now. As you would expect they started at the top of the list; timing chain and guide rails. Unfortunately the job of getting the guide rails changed wasn't as much of a breeze as I'd hoped. To get access to the bottom guide rails, you of course have to take off the timing cover. However, to do that, you need to disassemble pretty much everything there is in between the engine and the radiator grille, and that's not all, you need to work the underside of the engine as well.

I was glad I decided to have them changed though, one of the upper guide rails had already snapped clean in 2. I was really worried the other rails were beginning to go as well. Gives me tremendous peace of mind to know the chain & rails are brand new.

Now, on to the pics.

150357_471600219152_675134152_5254968_6710144_n.jpg

This is the bare minimum amount of disassembling you need to do to change the timing chain. You can just feed the new chain in through the exposed sprocket at the end of the camshaft. For this the bulk of disassembly was the airbox & inlet pipes.

74200_474487519152_675134152_5298685_1936172_n.jpg

Both cam covers removed. At this point you can check the upper guide rails for wear & damage.

150198_475803844152_675134152_5311473_6792815_n.jpg

Most of the front now disassembled, some work still left to do before the timing cover will come off.

154832_477852309152_675134152_5337059_6693464_n.jpg

Fruit of all that disassembling labour: timing cover is off as is the old chain. All of the guide rails can now be replaced; what a great time to notice one of them is missing. :D A few days' wait for a very cheap, but crucial part.

154878_477852394152_675134152_5337065_3697693_n.jpg

New chain is installed, the red guide rail is the one that was missing.

While doing this I'll be replacing almost all of the seals that are involved, including water & oil pump seals, cam cover seals, etc. Next week the timing cover should be going back on and the engine bay slowly back together in general.


In other news, the Magnaflows arrived.

74801_477269794152_675134152_5329761_2698849_n.jpg


I was glad to hear the same place where I'm getting the rest of the work done can do full stainless steel exhaust work. They get to do this later on.

150198_475803849152_675134152_5311474_2398659_n.jpg

Overall look of the current almost stock exhaust. The Magnapacks will be installed right after the cat, and pipes fabricated to the rear where the big muffler will go like you'd expect.


74461_479071094152_675134152_5351214_811136_n.jpg


A pic from under the plastic side paneling, as you can see there's very little corrosion, which is a relief.
 
Well, time for another update. Everything went smoothly with the remainder of the engine timing rebuild project. New seals and gaskets went in and the engine bay stuff was reassembled soon after my last post.

What's new is on the exhaust front.

155953_486394334152_675134152_5449682_4833626_n.jpg

Here's the old muffler with some of the pipe that comes in from the cat. It was clamped together as you can see in the premortem pic couple of posts back.

I had a chance to shoot a short vid with the exhaust ending at the cat. (STRAIGHT PIPES OH YEAH.) Some of you may have already seen it in the other thread but here it is anyway.


It was loud and loud V8's are always fun but obviously, despite the grin on my face, it doesn't compare to a nice exhaust setup. The exhaust note with straight pipes is always very rough and edgy.

156517_486394959152_675134152_5449695_5370892_n.jpg

Test fitting the Magnapacks.

149056_486394984152_675134152_5449696_5169018_n.jpg

Some of the catback pipe complete, test fitting the muffler. As you can see there's very little clearance between the muffler tips and the rear skirt, this is definitely the largest muffler you can fit on a SEC. Any longer and you'd have the carve up the bumper to get the tips to fit. At this size it was still possible to fabricate corner pieces like the original muffler and have the tips protrude where they should, through an incision in the bumper.

77095_486395124152_675134152_5449701_5853296_n.jpg

Here's a closeup of the tightest space.

148594_486395029152_675134152_5449698_810457_n.jpg

Muffler goes exactly where it should and hangs no lower than the stock exhaust, stuff like that is important to me personally.

156633_486395099152_675134152_5449700_4026445_n.jpg

Getting the clearance issues near the driveshaft sorted required some gentle adjustments.

155714_486395194152_675134152_5449702_7540506_n.jpg

Nearly finished shape.

155581_486395229152_675134152_5449703_5747987_n.jpg

New setup fabricated and installed.

149812_486394944152_675134152_5449694_2491650_n.jpg

Tips. They're a bit larger and obviously different shape than on the C124 but the configuration and feel is pretty much the same. Couldn't get a pic from behind but will get one once the car is on the road again.

First impressions on the new exhaust: it was much quieter than I expected which is nice considering the extra expense of adding the resonators, I'm glad they worked. Haven't heard them in real use yet which is always a killer, I know from experience Magnas get a lot louder when they get up to temperature. I hope there isn't too much drone.

Unlike on the C124 the sound is very very Magnaflow-like. Just like most Magnaflow setups on YouTube. This is a good thing as I'm very much a fan of the note. Here's a vid I shot at the garage, more will come when I get the car on the road.

(If it says unavailable, that's because YouTube hasn't finished processing it yet, it took until the next day with the straight pipes vid and I can't be arsed to wait until tomorrow to post this. YouTube sucks these days but what can you do.)

Next up are the interior switches and blower motor. In addition, correctness of the fuel mixture is still unclear and it's still idling 200 rpms too high. It's possible the garage can't fix it, in which case I'm planning on running another idle speed controller from a guy who also owns a 560SEC and seeing if that drops the idle speed. Also, there's the side panels, rustproofing etc. Still a lot to do.

I haven't received the BBS's yet either which is not great because of multiple reasons. First, I was stupid enough to pay in advance and they are now very very late. Getting worried. Also, the car's slowly but surely reaching completion at the garage, winter has arrived while the car's been there and it's running summers. I won't drive a yard with summers in these conditions, it's full-blown winter outside. Also, time-wise, when/if I do receive the wheels, it's another week till I receive the GoodYear Ultra Grip Ice+ tires I'll be putting on them. Atm it's looking like the car will have to remain at the garage in a completed state for some time...
 
Last edited:
Great video! Thank you Jupix, that clears it up. It is really engineering pornography....

I really should check this thread more often though...a lot of very nice upgrades!
 
Last edited:
NP, glad you found it informative :)

The Magnaflow sound video seems to be up now, for your viewing pleasure.
 
After many delays and even some loss of hope the wheels arrived today.

63991_493248334152_675134152_5549826_7970655_n.jpg


63413_493248089152_675134152_5549821_3749563_n.jpg


Tires (205/55 16" GoodYear Ultra Grip Ice+) should arrive tomorrow at the earliest, Friday at the latest.

63505_493255384152_675134152_5549919_6643727_n.jpg


Meanwhile the car is sitting outside the garage gathering snow. Nothing's happened since last update while we were waiting for the whole wheel business to be concluded. Work is continued tomorrow or the day after, depending on whether they can get a man on the job on such short notice. The remaining issues should not be too?time-consuming, mostly it's just disassembling and assembling the center console to get to some of the backlights.

I'm now pretty sure the idle speed issue is due to the tyhj?k?yntimoottori gathering dirt, grease etc. inside it and jamming. I guess it's the IAC (idle air control) valve assembly in English but I don't know. Maybe a more techy Finn can help me out on this. Anyway, the mechanic will take it off and clean it and we'll see if that takes the idle rpm down a notch. Stay tuned.
 
Those rims look really good, the classic BBS basket style, very nice.
Can not wait to see them on the car.
 
you're asking someone else to mount your wheels? that must be the easiest job to do on a car...
 
Maybe he meant putting tyres onto the rims, which would probably entail alignment and balancing?
 
ah...yes, i don't do that myself either :D
 
Yay! Tires arrived today and went onto the rims with no problems. The BBS's were mostly semi-balanced apart from one which required quite a large weight (80g). That will be a rear tyre for sure. Anyway, was pleasantly surprised to be able to even source the correct type bolts off the shelf of a tire seller in town. The BBS's require ball-type bolts with a 30mm long thread while the Monoblocks used a 25mm bolt with a cone head. I was prepared for a long wait while sourcing the bolts but got very lucky. Pics tomorrow hopefully.
 
good stuff, looking forward to pictures :)
 
Again a delay of a couple business days (plus the weekend) but the car is progressing again. They're now installing the new blower motor and hopefully the side panels after that.

I was able to grab some new photos, though they are still very narrow angle as a result of being shot indoors.

63540_496125999152_675134152_5595702_4464280_n.jpg


New wheels are mounted. In response to claims that they are too narrow / too much offset in the back:
- I consider this a nice 80s retro look (or a classic car look if you prefer) and very gentlemanly in comparison to low offset wheels or god forbid once that bulge outwards.
- Remember, 205 is right there in the ballpark for a W126 stock tire. 225s or somesuch are an expensive cosmetic upgrade with tradeoffs in comfort.
- This photograph is shot from the worst possible angle to bring out the effect of wheel offset.

162732_496126114152_675134152_5595703_7834107_n.jpg


New exhaust viewed from the back. Looks pretty damn nice in my opinion. Very narrow perspective still though.
 
Top