- 3,987
- Gaithersburg/MD
- landseaair
EDIT: Decided that it will take too much work to fix this darn thing since the core support and headlight frames are possibly bent... Trying to sell it now for as much as possible.
This thread is now about the car I bought instead.
1985 european spec w126 500SE
found the car listed on craigslist with a "rough idle", 245,000 miles, and mismatched wheels for $800 (!!!) After I decided to sell the wrecked car I called the guy up and offered him $500 cash for it and after all of 5 seconds of deliberation the classic "sold" comment was made and we were off to see the wizar...er the Mercedes. One look at the car and I knew my girlfriend and I were sold, someone at some point had taken very good care of the car which had no rust, pretty good paint, and a black leather interior with very minimal wear. Coughed up the cash and drove the car home! Turns out the rough idle was caused by the worlds first V7 engine (number 3 cylinder getting no fuel due to a worn out fuel distributor) Also turns out that at some point silly putty was a suitable medium for repairing a broken radiator fitting (!!!!!), and finally it turns out that the car, although manufactured in 85 the car is actually an 86 which would be very rare in the US since the 560 models that debuted the same year mostly negated the need for the higher powered euro models. After some 5 spoke AMG wheels, minor repairs, and cleaning up the car was ready to go and go it did. On my first test drive which for the purpose of this thread was High Speed Ring
I easily got the car up to 100mph (!!!!!!!!!) and promptly discovered the need for both a front wheel bearing and an alignment (badly). Overall this is an awesome investment considering the minimal expense needed to make the car near perfect. some of the repairs need are:
Front right wheel bearing
4 wheel alignment
spark plugs oil change other maintenance
small trim on the rear door in order to hold the window switch in place
sunroof rails need to be cleaned more thoroughly
something is causing the vaccum pump to not unlock all the doors when the key is turned
the climate control works, but I need 2 new monovalves to get the heat working again.
thermostat
I have a set of glass euro lights in the trunk since at some point the car was switched to American (crap) headlights and the original headlight wipers were left on the car causing them to be more like fog light wipers...
Some of the rare/desirable features the car has:
no cats
2 piece headers for each side known as tri ys and apparently also responsible for a little more power
manual dual climate control
power seats with memory in the frot
front seat heaters
the engine is an ECE version which besides providing a knob to adjust the usable fuel octane also gives the engine a bump in power in unknown ways. This should theoretically be faster even then the later 560 models
I'll try to keep the thread updated when relevant
the car below is the wrecked car, see a later post fr pictures of the new SE
This thread is now about the car I bought instead.
1985 european spec w126 500SE
found the car listed on craigslist with a "rough idle", 245,000 miles, and mismatched wheels for $800 (!!!) After I decided to sell the wrecked car I called the guy up and offered him $500 cash for it and after all of 5 seconds of deliberation the classic "sold" comment was made and we were off to see the wizar...er the Mercedes. One look at the car and I knew my girlfriend and I were sold, someone at some point had taken very good care of the car which had no rust, pretty good paint, and a black leather interior with very minimal wear. Coughed up the cash and drove the car home! Turns out the rough idle was caused by the worlds first V7 engine (number 3 cylinder getting no fuel due to a worn out fuel distributor) Also turns out that at some point silly putty was a suitable medium for repairing a broken radiator fitting (!!!!!), and finally it turns out that the car, although manufactured in 85 the car is actually an 86 which would be very rare in the US since the 560 models that debuted the same year mostly negated the need for the higher powered euro models. After some 5 spoke AMG wheels, minor repairs, and cleaning up the car was ready to go and go it did. On my first test drive which for the purpose of this thread was High Speed Ring
I easily got the car up to 100mph (!!!!!!!!!) and promptly discovered the need for both a front wheel bearing and an alignment (badly). Overall this is an awesome investment considering the minimal expense needed to make the car near perfect. some of the repairs need are:Front right wheel bearing
4 wheel alignment
spark plugs oil change other maintenance
small trim on the rear door in order to hold the window switch in place
sunroof rails need to be cleaned more thoroughly
something is causing the vaccum pump to not unlock all the doors when the key is turned
the climate control works, but I need 2 new monovalves to get the heat working again.
thermostat
I have a set of glass euro lights in the trunk since at some point the car was switched to American (crap) headlights and the original headlight wipers were left on the car causing them to be more like fog light wipers...
Some of the rare/desirable features the car has:
no cats
2 piece headers for each side known as tri ys and apparently also responsible for a little more power
manual dual climate control
power seats with memory in the frot
front seat heaters
the engine is an ECE version which besides providing a knob to adjust the usable fuel octane also gives the engine a bump in power in unknown ways. This should theoretically be faster even then the later 560 models
I'll try to keep the thread updated when relevant
the car below is the wrecked car, see a later post fr pictures of the new SE
:tup:
However if I recall correctly it is pretty average for the age of the car. It did, however, start perfectly fine despite the damage 
The guy had one of those fifty dollar license plates with the MB logo on the front, too. I was a little confused.
@ V7
r a volvo Penta engine..
