My 1989 Mercedes 560 SEC

Every time I come in here, the car looks better and better. Keep up the obsessive good work! :D
 
I miss working on those old Benzs. Nice find there.
 
One of the best looking mercs ever done IMO. Looks very clean. We used to have a W126, and afaik it's just a sedan version of that. just a very nice car to take on a road trip.
 
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I know what you're talking about, like I said in the beginning I drove it all the way down from Oulu with only one stop for food. Wasn't particularly achy, tired or grumpy when I got home, which is why this car is so great for cruising.

One thing I found out very recently is that this car is officially not low-emissions tagged. That means I can legally remove the cat. That would probably happen by cutting the cat off the downpipes and fabricating two parallel running pipes with an H pipe. The lambda would go in the crosspipe. I need to work out whether this has been tried and tested by other M117 owners and then decide if I'm gonna go through with it.

I went to the shop today to have a look at the A/C. Unfortunately my car has the old-style valves in the A/C pipes which is a surefire way of knowing whether a W126 supports R134a. So mine doesn't. Either I need to find a man with R12 and the skills to put it in, or convert to the new stuff. The conversion is pretty expensive. Since I would hardly ever use the A/C I'm first going to try and revive the current system.

I got the go-ahead to find any shop I like and have the exhaust tips refabricated. The shop where the current ones were done are going to take care of the bill. When I start doing that I'm going to have to decide whether I'm going to keep the rear muffler or just go with the Magnapacks. Tbh the driving I'm currently doing on the Mercedes is largely just cruising for fun, so I might like some extra noise.
 
Hi Jupix, I'm enjoying this thread. Which wheels are you favouring, the Penta 2's or the BBS RS's?
 
Hi Jupix, I'm enjoying this thread. Which wheels are you favouring, the Penta 2's or the BBS RS's?

Hi, and welcome to the forum. Glad you like my thread. How'd you end up here?
I prefer the Pentas by a mile. The offset is pretty much perfect for this car, the overall look is more MiamiVicey :)roll:), they are a lot lot lot lot lot more hasslefree than the BBSes (no need to worry about leakage and the BBS valves work at fewer gas stations and pressure checkers). Also the BBSes are a real PITA to keep clean. That's actually the main reason why I retired them to summer-only use the first chance I got. They are also twice as expensive as Pentas, and more difficult to find in a configuration you want.


The trouble with R12 is that it's been illegal in Finland for something like a decade. I paid a visit to a shop who does maintenance on industrial refridgerators, air conditioners etc. and asked if they had any R12 laying around. Maybe they could've had some left over after emptying an R12 A/C unit in like an old barn or something, after all it's illegal to let that stuff into the atmosphere. But no, they hadn't seen any R12 in a while. I know a guy who might be able to smuggle some in from Russia, and that's pretty much the only option I've got left.
 
The trouble with R12 is that it's been illegal in Finland for something like a decade. I paid a visit to a shop who does maintenance on industrial refridgerators, air conditioners etc. and asked if they had any R12 laying around. Maybe they could've had some left over after emptying an R12 A/C unit in like an old barn or something, after all it's illegal to let that stuff into the atmosphere. But no, they hadn't seen any R12 in a while. I know a guy who might be able to smuggle some in from Russia, and that's pretty much the only option I've got left.

If I were you, I'd upconvert. IMO it not worth the risk of getting caught.

Also, about your exhaust, you should straight-pipe it if you can get away with it :D
 
The car is now back from the machine buffing.

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The guy (with decades of experience) was not very nice about the paint, he said he can see evidence of numerous resprays all around the body, and the chrome was apparently coated with paint dust. He did say the end result is exceptionally good for such an old car. My take is, the paint looks very nice and even, and the swirls and other scratches were considerably reduced. The guy did say it would risk the paint to buff it any further. My current gripes are pretty much limited to the chrome, which is pretty scratchy and rusted in places, and some dings here and there. But like I have said, since it's a DD it doesn't have to be 100 % perfect.

In other news, I had this shipped over from England. May would be proud. Now I just need to find the time to do the work.

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What it is, is of course a leather restoration kit with oils, soaps, dye etc.
 
Whoa, I guess it looks even better today among modern appliances than it did when it was new! That condition helps of course :)
 
I'm trying to get my A/C refilled, too; it's an R12 system and it could possibly be refilled at a fridge guy. Apparently there's an R12 substitute called R24/Rs24, which could be used instead of converting to R134. I haven't found a place to do that yet, I've just gotten ei-oo from various AD-Autohuoltos and Autofit:s.
 
Yeah, the problem with mine is not just the type of refridgerant. When you convert one of these to R134a you get new fill plugs to replace the OEM ones. The newer A/C maintenance machines at places like Autofit can't connect to the old style plug like in my car. Not sure then whether any place with R24 would be able to fill mine.
 
I am a massive fan of Mercedes and I am very fond of your Mercedes cars here. I have a new 2011 Mercedes SL600 and I have thought about by some older ones because they are just great classics. What are they like to drive?
 
Thanks! Owning an old Merc is like any other old car, it takes some character from the owner as well. It can get annoying at times and an old car can never match a new car when it comes to quantifiable properties. But if you love old cars like me, then there's no substitute and in the end it's all worth it. If you want ultimate driving satisfaction, then Mercedes is probably not for you. They are slow, only a few gas engines produce great low end torque for their displacement, most make no sound at all (depending on how old and how stock you're gonna go), the steering feel is only average and usually in a used Mercedes it has some play. In the days of old, a Mercedes would have great ride quality, but even if you buy a perfectly preserved example, it'll be pretty average compared to a new car. And despite Mercedes being among the best built cars ever made, ones that are 20+ years old will have some rattles, squeaks etc.

If you're gonna go the classic car way, you need to do it for the right reasons: style, feel, patina, smells of oldschool leather and fabric, simplicity of design and construction. That sort of thing. They just feel more human and vulnerable, and more likable than modern cars I think. If you buy the car on that basis, and because you love old cars, then you won't be disappointed by its performance.
 
Ever since I first test drove the car I knew the differential was going to be a serious achilles heel. 5000km ago, on the test drive, it howled at 80kph like any Merc diff that had seen a lot of highway miles. Since I've been driving it, the howling hasn't gotten much worse, only it now happens on 85kph too, but new to the situation is a ticking (sometimes a crackle) coming from somewhere near the backseat. I started thinking omg, the diff is going to let go real soon.

I'd been waiting for fall in order to clean up the wheel lug thread grooves in the front. I figured since there is probably going to be a diff overhaul and the car will be sitting for a while again, I'm going to do it now, and switch to Pentas/winters while I'm at it. This was last week.

Today I had an appointment at the shop. We opened the diff to start diagnosing the ticking. Well, first off, the diff wasn't dry. I'm not sure how much oil there was exactly but one thing was for sure, it looked pretty awful and it wasn't certain if it was the right kind; the diffs on 560's are pretty cranky about having just the right lubricant. After all they are viscous LSD's and Merc ones at that. I read a recommendation for Mobil HD 80W-90 hypoid oil but asked a buddy what he'd bought. He recommended LiquiMoly LS SAE 85W-90 oil which is for Limited Slip Diffs obviously. So that's what I got!

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Old oil

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New oil

I didn't take a very long test drive (road temp was 38C and I was running frictions) but the result is this. The diff feels like it howls a little less. The ticking is still there.

While I was at the shop an old taxi driver dude threw an interesting idea: what if it's a wheel bearing. Well, it certainly could be, and I started leaning in that direction initially until I remembered something; the car only makes that ticking noise when cruising at 85 kph. If you let off the cas, it stops, and if you accelerate, it stops, even at the precise speed where the noise happens on steady gas. So I'm still thinking it's a bearing in the diff. Oh, and there was no evidence of metal in the old oil, or in the drain plug magnet. It's therefore pretty unlikely that anything else besides a bearing is damaged inside the diff.


Other than the diff problem, 560SEC ownership has been pretty mundane recently. I went to Lappeenranta Cruising a couple weeks back, for which I washed the thing and took the ten minutes to maintain the engine bay's cleanliness. Here's a pic I took while I was cleaning the lug threads.

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Last week I was bored to tears at home so I did some digging for some nuggets of trivia.

Did you know:
- When this car was new, in Finland it cost 1,1 million marks when new, or about 280 000 EUR, adjusted for inflation. In America the US model cost $145k.
- There were a total of about 28 900 560 SECs produced, of which about 17 700 were facelift models, of which about 5000 were 1989 model year, and about 3000 were Euro models like mine.
- There are about 285 560 SECs on the road in the UK, right now. That is across all model years and versions. Since the 90s, where the data starts, about 4% of 560 SECs have disappeared from the roads per year. Using that number as a basis for extrapolation, my car is currently 1 of about 9550 facelift 560 SECs left.
 
I approve the engine bay, looks great! Hopefully the diff will be sorted out soon :)
 
the BBS' look great on the car, but i also digged the Pentas on it, but i might be a bit biased, as a owner of a set of Penta wheels myself, going on my Volvo :p

engine sound is great! it actually sounds a lot like my Buick before i started the rebuild.
 
Today I got the car back from another shop who re-did the exhaust tips for me. They weren't very nice about the quality of the previous tips which is understandable, there were some things about them I didn't like either. While they were at it I had them take the cat off. I asked them to make an H pipe in its place and mount the lambda in the crosspipe, but they said that was not optimal, it would have to be more of an X pipe for that purpose. That would've been pretty expensive so they ended up using the tip of the old cat. They said this results in a great flowing part that fits well with the surrounding pipes. I trust their judgement so that is how the exhaust was done.

General cat area as it stands now:

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Complete exhaust:

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I have to say I'm especially happy with how the new tips turned out. They're very similar to what I had in the red Mercedes a while back. I'll post pics tomorrow.

Removing the cat had a tremendous effect on exhaust sound. I had no idea the Merc catalytic converter muffled the sound this much. The exhaust is now pretty loud outside the car and drones slightly inside at 80kph. I would not dream about removing any more mufflers, it's perfect the way it is.

Here's a vid of the new exhaust in action. No inside footage, sorry about that.

 
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