W123 (S123) Estate build thread

[James Robinson]

Hi guys. I thought I'd start to document the complete novice DIY restoration of my 1985 taxi cab cream S123 240TD estate. I bought the car back in January when it came up for sale on Facebook marketplace about 30 minutes from me. I'd originally been looking for a semi modern diesel estate, mainly Audi A4 Avants. When I saw this and it was within my budget ,diesel and manual gearbox it ticked pretty much all my requirements (except for the economy one). I barely knew anything about these Mercs but I thought it looked like a really nice classic styled car.

My vision/plan for the car is a daily driver with a nice comfortable interior that will get decent MPG and be a good cruiser/gear hauler for my hobbies. Purists please look away. Now working my way through the car trying to remove rust and yesterday I took delivery of a set of seats and door cards from a 2015 e-class estate in sieden beige Napa leather.

I have never restored a car before and I'm absolutely looking for inspiration and tips. I'll try and document as much as I can and keep this updated frequently.

Let me start from the beginning...
View media item 3297View media item 3298View media item 3299First day of ownership first of many cleaning sessions for the interior. I've now replaced the miss matched wheel cover with a white one which still does not match the body colour.

 

[James Robinson]

A bit of history on the car gathered from the previous owner and having now driven and partly dismantled the car.

1985 model year car, light ivory paint (most of the panels) with palomino beige cloth interior.

It seems to be a fairly straight car (minus the rust), panel gaps are generally good and I've yet to find any evidence of crash damage. At some point by an owner previous to the guy I bought it off, the driveline was swapped from a 2.0 petrol 4spd auto to a 2.4 diesel 4spd manual. The guy thankfully went to the trouble of swapping over the badge on the boot but failed to update the V5. They also decided to only change over the ignition barrel from the donor car and seemingly lost the door and boot keys (I am in need of a pair of door barrels and boot lock with key). Judging by how disgusting the interior was I'm guessing it is original.

The rust is more extensive than I first thought. Even though I was able to get into a pit under the car when I bought it, I have uncovered a lot since taking the front end apart and looking at the car properly. Currently I'm working on the rust repairs having never welded before in my life.

 

[James Robinson]

First test. She fits in the garage.

I drove the car as my daily for a couple of weeks until I realised that it was leaking badly from the window seals and also that I couldn't lock the car... A few weeks before the coronavirus lockdown I replaced the seals and was switching between my MK1 mx5 and this driving to work.

Here's some photos from the first few months of ownership.

 

[James Robinson]

Once I was told I would be working from home I decided that I'd start stripping down the front end and try to remedy some of the "surface rust". This quickly resulted in the purchase of a welder and associated kit and me attempting to learn to weld.

Stripping down the front end and crying. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

 

[Blobcat]

Hello and welcome S123’s do rust badly...

 

[James Robinson]

The disassembly has currently stopped until I've got a spring compressor (on order) to remove the anti roll bar and treat the bulkhead mount pictured. This area is the most concerning so far as the area beneath is the point where the chassis rail meets the bulkhead. view from inside the footwell after removing the lower dash and bulkhead sound deadening.

The top of the mount has rotted through. Hopefully I can cut out the rust inside this mount and patch the bulkhead from the inside without removing the anti roll bar mount completely and risking messing up the suspension alignment.

First, some welding gear. nice auto dimming mask
at the time our local gas supplier was closed so I bought several disposable bottles of Co2 and Argon Co2 mix to test both gasses and get me going with welding.

Definitely underestimated the number of cutting and grinding disks I'd need.

Turns out the welder is the cheap bit. It's all the other crap you need to weld that cost the money...

 

[James Robinson]

I've been putting together a vision over the last few months of what I eventually want the car to look like. I've already started collecting parts for the rebuild.


First purchase was a set of these headlights. At first I was really keen on this look but the original headlights have grown on me. We'll see if these make it onto the car when it goes back together

Managed to find a cheap fully chrome bumper on eBay from a coupe to remove the horrible plastic bumper ends, wasn't quite in as good a nick as I thought from the Ad and I'm still searching for a rear to match.

 

[James Robinson]

First repair on the car went better than I'd expected really. Please bare in mind, I am not a welder. I am however a structural engineer working on submarines not that it's very transferrable.


Dirt had clearly built up under the bracket on the top of the wheel arch. Looks like both sides will need repairs but the drivers seems less extensive.


Got very lucky with the fit of this repair piece. Weld gaps were pretty tight.

They're not pretty but I got decent penetration and a complete seal.
had to flat these welds off to allow refitting of this re-enforcing plate.

Managed to make a bit of a former for this from a scrap of pine. Again, lucky that this turned out to almost fit perfectly up against the old part. If you can source this part I've not been able to find it.
Turned out okay I think for a hand beaten panel.
This welding is really not great. I should have opened up my spot welds to get better joints to the top of the wheel well. I decided to add a couple of tacks round the outside to add a little strength and I did fill in that blow through after I took this photo. The tacks will be covered by my seam sealer once that arrives so I'm not overly concerned.

 

[James Robinson]

Changing the tune from rust. Interior. I clocked this interior on eBay seemingly pretty cheap and it's in absolutely mint condition. Still has that new leather smell. Big fan of this colour although it might look a bit lame, I've got other plans for the interior to jazz it up a bit and the design on these seats looks a lot like the original design on the faux leather seats some of these cars came with. Still need to remove the airbags and figure out the wiring for the motors. I think they're also heated but that's probably a whole nightmare in itself trying to power/control that.

Current storage solution, please excuse the mess. Had to rearrange my room to store this.

This colour seems pretty rare and I'm pretty sure these are pure Napa leather. Currently trying to find somewhere in the UK who supplies this in hides. I've found it listed on Hydes leather website in the US but can't seem to find a UK supplier. I think the fronts are going to be a pretty straight forward fit, I'll just have to make custom brackets for them. The rears are a whole other beast. The backs are taller and narrower than the original seats and the base is wider and shallower than the original. I think the only way this one will work is if I take the cushions from the new seats and adapt them to the original frames somehow. Just hope I can do this and keep them looking half decent.