Practically Classics Forum

Today has been frustrating. Started out well enough, with these picked up from the Mercedes dealership. https://i.ibb.co/82hxd7k/IMG-20211019-131946.jpg That's a gasket to go between the thermostat housing and the cylinder head and the seal that goes between the outer cap of the timing chain tension...

While waiting on parts from Mercedes for the S123 I figured it was a good opportunity to get a service item on TPA I'd been putting off done. Gearbox and diff oil change. What came out was quite grim, not glittery though, just very degraded. Was really thin and seemed to have lost a lot of its lubri...

Thermostat housing gasket and timing chain tensioner outer oil seal have both now been ordered from the dealer and should be here Monday or Tuesday. Think I may have confused the folks at the Mercedes dealer slightly when I parked an Invacar in their car park... Hopefully should be able to give the ...

Today I spent a good solid six hour stint working on this. The result? https://i.ibb.co/QJLLzML/IMG-20211013-173537.jpg It almost looks like an engine bay again. https://youtu.be/zCzaN7n7O9w Apparently I'm not a *completely* cack handed idiot either and must have done a reasonable job of getting the...

Today has been at times frustrating but overall was productive. I didn't actually have much work to do in terms of cleaning up the mating surface of the new head. This is what it looked like when I first looked at it. Reckon someone had already made a first pass over this before I got it. https://i....

Let's do a quick side by side comparison of the new and old camshaft journals... From the front... Ignore any blocked looking oilways, it's just grease from when I had things in and out a bunch. 1. https://i.ibb.co/Q933cj5/IMG-20211011-161845.jpg https://i.ibb.co/4g7z7r6/IMG-20211011-161850.jpg 2. h...

Bad luck mate, are you sure you don't want to take the engine out? Id lend you my engine crane but you're too far away unless you fancy a bit of a road trip.. The single biggest issue with removing the engine is that other than sitting in the middle of the garden I've nowhere to work on it. I've al...

This afternoon has been frustrating. On the plus side, Motorserv reckon I should have a head gasket and inlet manifold gasket ready to collect tomorrow. Hopefully they'll have more luck than Mercedes themselves or the specialist I was trying to order from before. Fat lot of good it will do me though...

Distraction time... Ugh...my head gasket set which has been stuck in customs since the middle of the week apparently is now on its way back to the sender according to the tracking. Deep joy. Fine, will go see if Motorserv can get the necessary bits in tomorrow. In slightly less depressing news a lit...

Well so much for...well everything since lunchtime on Thursday I think it was. The rest of my week and Saturday up until about an hour ago instead of getting anything I wanted done, instead was spent in the kitchen. Cleaning, removing, storing then cleaning where things had come from. All this to de...