Resurrecting a 1973 Mercedes

This will hopefully be a story told by two people. Eric will chime in when he gets a chance.

So, my friend Eric has been thinking about another classic. He's had some interesting ones in the past - a Bugeye, a classic Mini, a GT6 and an old Land Rover. He's also got a customized Miata that's been chronicled here in the past - I think. But now he's looking at more sedate machinery.

We've been passing car listings back and forth, ranging all over the place. I sent him a link to a 325iX for sale on the GRM forum, and he replied: "I just bought a classic Mercedes." Now that was a surprise.

It was poorly listed on Kijiji with no pictures and in the wrong section. It turns out he'd found a two-owner car that last changed hands 36 years ago. The current owner had parked it in 2006 when his health turned for the worse.

The car had apparently never been in the rain and had about 68,000 miles. Here's what Eric found.

Yup, it's basically pristine. The interior is perfect. The exterior had a repaint in the 80's in the original Maple Yellow. Mechanically, it fired right up and felt good on a slow and short test drive, although the brakes were a bit soft. Best part was the price - I don't think you could buy a 1990 Miata in Ottawa for $3500. The car is a 1973 280, known as a W114 chassis. No S, no SEL, just 280.

How could you not?

Now, in Ontario a car needs a safety in order to be registered. So Eric had the car towed over to the same independent Mercedes specialist that had maintained it to this point. And that's where the shocker came in. They presented him with a bill equivalent to what he'd paid for the car in the first place in order to pass the safety - with no guarantee that it was everything. Oh, and a bill for $300 for making the list.

1-two tie rods including, labour parts and alignment $430.00

2-left lower ball joint including, parts and labour $375.00

3-right rear brake flex hose including, part and labour $148.00 (we recommend replacing both)

4-four tires $132.00 each approx (installed and balanced)

5-carburator fuel leak repair $685.00 approx (parts and labour) provided no further problems.

6-rear muffler hanger, $5.00

7-to secure battery is dependent on availability of cleat

8-to clean out windshield washer jet, assuming this is all that is required $22.00

We managed to inspect the front and rear calipers this afternoon and this is what we have found;

9-right front caliper is seized, including part and labour $322

10-both rear calipers are seized (both rear pistons on r/r and inboard piston on l/r are seized), including parts and labour for both calipers $594.00

As you can imagine, this took some of the thrill out of the new purchase. But some of those prices kinda jump out at you - $148 for a brake flex hose? I did a quick check, and NAPA has one for $15. I ran down a few more prices, and things like remanufactured calipers were in the $75 range.

Unfortunately, I don't live in Ottawa anymore. I live 2000 miles away. But Eric travels for a living and has nearly a million frequent flyer miles. I got a kitchen pass, and five days later I was flying to Ottawa with a checked bag full of tools. We made arrangements to borrow my parent's garage, and Eric ordered a few parts such as the flex hose and ball joints. I picked up a carb rebuild kit before I left.

Wednesday morning was the beginning. Eric had made arrangements for the car to be towed over to the work spot. Some comedy ensued, but the car eventually arrived. It was no longer running for some reason, so we pushed it into the garage and got it up on jackstands. Then we went to NAPA to pick up the parts and I started ranging the aisles and throwing things into the cart - carb cleaner, starting fluid, brake cleaner, gasket scraper, etc.

The carb was leaking like a sieve by this point. Thankfully, the MB shop had provided an exploded diagram with the bad gaskets illustrated - not that it was really needed, as you could see fuel gush out of the accelerator pump every time. I pulled the carb off and started to pull it apart. Yuk, it was full of sediment as you could expect. A couple of small (idle?) jets were almost totally clogged up. Let's hear it for carb cleaner.

I wasn't really taking pictures, but here's a reference shot of the carb before.

The carb was clean and back together pretty quickly. But check this out - we found this in the intake manifold. As far as I can tell, this is some sort of PCV chamber - assuming 1973 cars had PCV. This...stuff had accumulated in a spare chamber. I almost think it was designed to do this. It was about 1/2" deep. Yuk. Assuming it was not actually special NLA German filtration sand, we took it out.

With the carb in place and a new set of plugs installed, the car still didn't want to start. So we figured we'd get fresh gas in it...and discovered there was no bad gas to take out. It had simply run dry, probably aided by the leaky carb. With that sorted out and a quick squirt of ether, the beast came back to life. There was much rejoicing. And a coolant leak. So I fixed that.

Tie rods and ball joints showed no play, but a few tired boots. Tie rods are easy, so I swapped the new ones in. The ball joint boot was really kinda borderline and replacing the joint is a PITA, so we decided to put it off. The joint was just fine, and that's a job that could be done later easily enough.

On to the brakes. The right rear caliper certainly did seem to be frozen, but the feel of the brake pedal had me more concerned. It felt like a bad master. We looked at the price of a new one - the specialist had quoted $900 for the job. Well, NAPA had one for about $500 but they said it had an electrical sensor. Mercedes said they would make one for us, which would take about 6 weeks and cost $575. We spent some more time on both the US and Canadian NAPA sites, and found what we thought was a better match to our sensor-less master. The pictures showed quite a difference. Right at our deadline to order the part for delivery on Friday, we gave NAPA a part number and crossed our fingers.

Bingo. When Eric showed up with the new master the next morning, it was a perfect match. He said it cost $100. I asked about the core charge. Core charge? Yup. Turns out the master was actually only $73. Looked like a new German part too. We stuck it in immediately and started to bleed the system.

Yuk. You can imagine.

The biggest problem was that the RR caliper was showing no fluid at all at the bleeder. I got the others going, but it refused to play. Worse, the flare nuts were stuck on the hard lines, so the steel was twisting as I tried to remove the lines. Obviously a bad choice. Since we were on a schedule (I did have to go back to Colorado eventually!), I declined to do this job as I knew the car would likely end up marooned and I didn't have the tools I needed to make new hard lines. Eric agreed that his favorite Little British Car shop would be able to take this one, so we punted. The pedal felt good, though - the master had been the right call.

Remember the cost to fix the windshield squirter? Here's how that progressed:
- press the squirter button. Nothing.
- take the hose off the squirter. Press the button. Woo! Water!
- put the hose back on the squirter. Press the button. Woo! Water!
Well, that was easy.

A tip if you're doing oil changes on a classic Mercedes: you need a 14mm allen wrench to remove the drain plug. We made a tool out of a bolt and a couple of nuts. Then we discovered that the actual drain hole is about 1" in diameter, and the outflow is massive. More than our drain pan and funnel could handle. So that made a mess. I left the drain plug out to let the last bits dribble out - and of course we forgot, so we added another 5 quarts to the mess on the floor before catching that. Oops, sorry about the garage floor mom and dad. We'd already put five tires on the car (we figured two of them were from 1989) so that was sorted.

Finally, we had done everything we were going to do. With a bit of coaxing from the starter fluid, we got the car to idle and run consistently. I fixed a bit of a leak on the canister oil filter and tried to figure out how to tighten the screaming belts. Then we proceeded down the street on new transit plates to the LBC shop, where the car is to get a few things we weren't able to do. It became pretty apparent on the trip that the brake calipers need some attention, with a wicked pull to the left.

Still, it was a celebratory drive and the car was feeling better the longer it ran. It just needs some exercise.

This was one fun week. I got to visit with family, work on an interesting car, solve problems, reconnect with some of my best friends and bring a car back from the brink. In the end, we spent about three light days working on the car. There was some joking about Eric being a mogul who flew in a mechanic from Colorado to work on his vintage Mercedes, which sounds a whole lot fancier than the actual story!

Eric's off on a trip right now, but he'll hopefully chime in and share some pictures as well as continue the story. One interesting note - when the seller heard about the trouble with his "ready to drive" car, he offered Eric a $1000 refund. That's a stand-up guy.

Here's how the car looked last I saw it. Ready to embark on a summer of semi-daily driving and bonding with a new owner. I have to say, it's a heck of a lot of classic for the money, and with such a solid body and interior it's really well bought.

That is a real beauty! Pretty much the opposite of my '70 220D - mine was externally rusty with bad paint but mechanically solid. Long term ownership seems common. A friend of mine bought my car from original owner before passing it onto to me.

Interesting that the seat belts are different - mine have a really odd buckle on them - those seem a lot more secure.

I have a pile of spare parts from a donor car and could have got you a master cylinder but sounds like you found a better than replacement part.

I'm shocked how well they drive - the brakes and chassis seem very modern. My car is slow due to the diesel but I bet his drives like a million bucks.

Awesome! Maybe I'll see it the next time I'm in Kanata visiting my folks! Go Sens!

That's a very nice car.

That belongs in the "Good God Almighty" thread.

Very nice... BTW, just what type of carb is on that thing... It looks remakably like a Rochester Quadrajet...

I thought the same thing - it looks just like the Quadrajet on my old Cadillac. But it's actually a Solex 4A1. Known for being a bit crotchety due to warped plates, this one was just leaky thanks to old gaskets. But really, they're all just toilet bowls

One of the excellent things about this car is how it's built. Even just closing the door is a tactile wonder - it really sounds like the stereotypical bank vault. Heavy, but it closes easily and the latch feels wonderfully precise. There's no silver-colored plastic - if it looks like chrome, it's chrome.

I didn't get a chance to get it out on the highway. I'd love to feel it - I had a suspicion in the garage that the shocks were worn, but it might share ride qualities with my Caddy. Just a low-frequency lope as it repaves the road under you. I might have to make another visit home once Eric has the brakes finished.

ArthurDent, the front belts have a goofy buckle. There's a keyhole slot in the shoulder belt that latches into a post on the lap belt tang. I think Eric's going to swap those out for something a bit more user-friendly. The current setup is quite odd.

Parts prices for these are pretty reasonable and remarkably accessible for the bits we were looking for. Given the fact that Eric's paying for labor, I think it would be false economy to swap in a used part when the new ones aren't all that expensive. For a more DIY sort and if budget was super-tight, then things might be different. Still, $73 for a new master is a killer deal no matter what kind of car we're talking about!

Cool car and a great story.

Great story thanks for sharing

"A tip if you're doing oil changes on a classic Mercedes: you need a 14mm allen wrench to remove the drain plug. We made a tool out of a bolt and a couple of nuts. Then we discovered that the actual drain hole is about 1" in diameter, and the outflow is massive. More than our drain pan and funnel could handle. So that made a mess. I left the drain plug out to let the last bits dribble out - and of course we forgot, so we added another 5 quarts to the mess on the floor before catching that. Oops, sorry about the garage floor mom and dad. We'd already put five tires on the car (we figured two of them were from 1989) so that was sorted."

Made me grin - I learned this the hard way the first time I drained the oil tank on my first Porsche 911. The good news was that there was only about 12 quarts to spill all over everywhere once the drain pan was overwhelmed - which happened in about 2 seconds.

Love the Benz -- have wondered about the possibility of V8-ing one of those.

Awesome!

Historically I haven't paid MBs much mind, but I have to say that W123s are on my radar as a daily driver now for exactly some of the qualities mentioned on this one.

These older ones are incredibly cool, though.

I just saw an episode of Chasing Classic Cars where he came upon an older Mercedes sedan with low mileage that he picked up as a driver. It looked at least as good as this car, maybe better. Seems like people do sit on these and they last.

If you don't mind me asking, what's one of those worth? There's one in very similar condition near me, when I asked the owner about it he said the transmission was out, so I asked how much. He replied "Twelve". "Hundred?" I countered. "No, thousand."

If I ever have the inclination to pilot a German built leather sofa down the freeway, it will be one of these.

Always a pleasure reading your threads; you should write books, or something.

Like

petegossett wrote: If you don't mind me asking, what's one of those worth? There's one in very similar condition near me, when I asked the owner about it he said the transmission was out, so I asked how much. He replied "Twelve". "Hundred?" I countered. "No, thousand."

Eric picked this one up for $3500, dropped down to $2500 once the PO found out about the problems. I think he did really well with such a solid interior and body - cracked dashes and interior wood are fairly common, as is rust. Both of which suck to deal with. I was all over this car, I didn't see any signs of rot.

Of course, it needed a few things and there are all the various taxes and registration fees, but I think he'll have it registered, driving and healthy for $5500 or so. That even includes a brand new tire for the spare. I expect it'll generate the odd bill here and there from now on, but not many. More importantly, it's fully depreciated so the only costs will be running/repair costs and he can resell it in the future for what he paid if he wants. Can't say that about a new Toyota.

Older Mercedes are interesting. They don't seem to retain value due to collector status or even just status, they're treated like quality machines and retain their value accordingly. There are some surprisingly low prices, and tales of a dedicated long-term owner are pretty common.

I bought mine from its original owner; as they passed out of usefulness she would buy another one. In the barn were a 60s 220, the 280 I bought and a W123. She was driving a W210 chassis. She said her dad bought her the first one as a graduation from college present and told her to always buy the best one she could afford. The barns dirt floor had caused some horrible rust on all of them but there are really nice garage kept ones out there also.

Very cool car, great story. You made me laugh over the oil. After all these years I still do that kind of thing from time to time.

I've had a serious itch for a classic Mercedes over the last year or so. Once my wife gets a new daily I'll go hunting.

In reply to Keith Tanner:

All I can say is "wow". That is a killer find. Parts prices are startling, though. Mercedes gonna Benz.

Any updates?

Eric drove the car as a daily during the summer months, and I borrowed it once when I was visiting and cruised around town in style. It's the kind of car you pilot and not just drive.

But he never truly bonded with it, so he sold the car to a neighbour who had an identical one in worse shape. It just didn't scratch the itch, you know?

There's a good chance it'll be replaced by an XJ with Dakar-ish modifications. Eric has a strong fantasy life.