W123: Maintenance, Belts and Suspension

Had a nice W123 Kombi come in for some maintenance work - namely belts, pulley replacement, and some work on the rear suspension.

Well, alternator adjustment bracket was totally sheared - no way to use the adjustment rod, because well - it was missing the part of the bracket it uses to be adjusted. Some mild engineering came up with the breaker bar solution - belts are tight and won't be moving.

 

Then we have the lower alternator bolt. Looks somewhat normal, right?

Seeing what's wrong here?

1/4 of the bolt head was sheared off as well. Not exactly sure how, but hey, it was.

Now moving to the rear, what is essentially a brand new valve is put in. I was supplied the MB hard parts rebuild kit and I had the actual seals to reseal the whole thing. Car goes up and down VERY quickly and load levels nicely. I did have to make a new line to get this to work as someone had cross threaded one of the fittings to the original valve block - how it didn't leak, I don't know. Tight is tight, right?

New accumulators were put in as well.

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W211: Please maintain your cars.......

This car sees it's factory recommended 10k oil change 0W-40 synthetic once a year. Customer brings me a multitude of other cars, but for some reason, refuses to maintain this one properly. I guess a W211 is disposable.

Whoever did the oil change last used a cheap PAPER filter - that's not what you want to use on these engines. Polyester filters by Hengst are a couple dollars more and infinitely more robust. They'll also handle the sludge of these once a year oil changes.

Not only did it need a filter - it needed some air filters too. The car was hesitating and just refusing to do any sort of full throttle acceleration. WELL NOW WE KNOW WHY.

For the love of god folks, please maintain your cars.
 

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W210: AsthmaticMG, Front Bumper Body Work

So I've had this pre-facelift W210 AMG/Sport front bumper sitting around in storage long enough. The bumpers had some front end curb damage that cracked the plastic in a few places - which I honestly didn't know about until I dropped the damn thing and bondo broke free. Digging deeper, a previous (and apparently inexperienced) body shop had attempted to fix the crack by grinding down into the plastic and using bondo...... SAY NO TO BONDO.

The whole passenger lower corner looked like it ate a curb, but hey, NOT ANYMORE. Hopefully I can get this thing painted and put on the car before the AsthmaticMG conquers the western US. 

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W210: Daily Diesel - AsthmaticMG - Rear Bumper

AsthmaticMG strikes again, being the most "genuine" of AMG diesels......

A friend had a very nice condition, pre facelift AMG/Sport bumper in 744 for me. $20 and a case of beer....not a bad trade eh? The AMG bumper a lot better around my curt hitch than the actual stock bumper, all while improving the look of the car 202030%. Complete bumper assembly is lighter than the stock assembly as well - bonus points in the MPG and speed department, right?

3 13mm fasteners and the bumper slides to the rear and off. Solid 15 minutes to pull a bumper off and put one back on.

I also have a prefacelift AMG front bumper assembly that I will be repairing/painting before installation. Excited to get this car's looks to a whole new level. Hopefully I'll have it set and squared away by the time I take it on a trip out west. Everything will be documented here on the blog!
 

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