1982 Mercedes W123 estate

[Chris Wilson]

I bought this car a few years ago, after not being able to find a diesel locally I went for this 2.0 petrol 4 pot, had it been MOT'd i would have happily used it as a daily driver, its quirky, nice to drive and about as practical as a car can get! she's huge inside! But alas it was sorned and i had a few land rover projects on the go and a morris 1100, so long story short the poor old german had to sit at the side of the house for about 4 years until yesterday. I winched it onto the trailer and took it to the workshop to strip it down and assess whether it was worth rescueing and after 4 years exposed to the elements I am very impressed! A few little patches (sills and scuttle) and a wee bit of intricate work inside the rear drivers side door and she'll be good to go. Now comes the bit that you originality fans might not like. I'm planning to paint it a modern colour and put modern alloys on it. I'm doing it fiat powder blue and putting 16" mercedes monoblocks on it. If it had low miles and I was going to sell her on id probably keep it original but there's 115k on it and its going to be my own daily driver so I'm not worried about keeping it original. Having said that I'd still like to hear your opinions, these were a pretty popular car and there are plenty about, does that make it okay for me to 'butcher' this one, as some would call it? On a more practical note the front and rear screen rubbers are the same as a mini etc but on a bigger scale, and the finisher strip that you squeeze in at the end with a diamond shaped tool (or bit of a coat hanger) is mahoosive and also metal so not as flexible. I'm confident I will get the screens in using the string method but what about this finishing strip? Is this larger, rigid strip harder to fit than the flexible one found on an old morris or austin etc?

[TerryG]

Modern paint and alloys aren't butchering a car. Nobody is going to criticise you for wanting it sprayed a colour you like and if you do eventually sell it reverting the alloys back to factory is only a few bolts so I wouldn't worry. Get out your spray gun and paint it to suit you.

[Chris Wilson]

Are there any merc fans on the forum who can point me in the direction of a decent front valence? I want this car done right so if i go for a pattern part it has to be good quality. Someone had put double sided tape around the windscreen rubber 'seat' and siliconed the screen into the rubber before fitting it so I broke it taking it out. Are there any mercedes breakers in Northern Ireland??

[TerryG]

Alabbasi is our resident Mercedes expert, he is in the states but may well be able to point you in the direction of a part. I'm sure he will be along shortly with mention of a merc

[alabbasi]

klokkerholm makes aftermarket parts for these cars and they have good support for the W123. Google them to find a distributor in the UK.

Good luck!

[Chris Wilson]

Thank, saturday is supposed to be clean up day in my garage so I never bring jobs in on a saturday. But today there was neither a brush nor a bucket touched haha, I just got stuck in to cutting out rust and making patches. My average time for completeion of a project seems to be about 5 years so I'm going to try to do this in record time haha. I'll keep you posted.

[pryantcc]

Lovely project, I'm most envious! Looking forward to the updates.

[Chris Wilson]

I forgot to mention a couple of small holes in the front wheelarch, after poking about with a screwdriver it's almost half the size of an A4 sheet, i have it cut out and cleaned up and a patch made so I'll post a few pictures of it in stages once I'm finished. I have to say that after stripping this thing down I now love old mercs! With every little job I do I get the impression that mercedes designed it to be easy to work on! And also whomever has been working on this car before me has copper greased every nut and bolt and they just glide off

[alabbasi]

Yep, these cars are really well thought out and very easy to fix. Parts are still readily available and not expensive. There are lots of worn out examples on the road today, but if you decide to rebuild the front suspension, you'll be amazed at how nicely they ride.

Does it have SLS? If so, how are the accumulators?