1988 190e 2.3-16

[stwat]

Just a few pictures of my 1988 190E 2.3-16.
It has done a little over 163.000 miles so far.
It has full leather, manual Getrag gearbox, ASD differential and all the usual refinements.

Since buying the car almost a year ago i have refurbished the SLS system which included replacing the Rear struts, springs and spheres. Replaced the engine and gearbox mounts. Fitted a new steering damper and front strut top mounts as well as many other rubber bushes etc.

I also found a nasty bodge when i took the clocks out to replace the OTG. Some scrote had cut the wire from the ASD bulb and then wired the ASD and ABS bulbs together so that they both lit up and went out again when the engine was started!!!
So that was fixed which then left the ASD light constantly lit meaning it was not functioning.
After a lot of checking and testing i took the ASD relay apart and found that it had quite a few dry solder joints. 10 mins with the soldering iron soon fixed the problem and i had fully working ASD again.

I also replaced the nasty big star grill and clear front indicators.
The interior was/is in fantastic condition with only very slight wear on the drivers seat bolster. Some leather treatment and recolouring brought it back to looking superb again.

There are still lots more to do but at the moment i'm just driving and enjoying the car as a running resto.

Stu

This is how the car looked when first bought.
http://i796.photobucket.com/albums/y...023-16v045.jpg

The first job was to get rid of the grill and clear corners.




You can see that it was sitting a bit too low at the back in this pic. Which was fixed with all new SLS parts and new springs.


Painting the rocker cover is high on the list of jobs to do.



A few interior shots.





The car came with all it's origional keys which include, the wallet key, valet key and two main keys plus the metal tags with the seporate key codes on.


Nice origional leather documents wallet


Well that's all for now as i'm sure you must be getting bored by now

Stu

[stwat]

Sorry about the big pictures. Oh and the crap out of focus ones

I was sure i'd re sized them.

Il post some much better pics at some point.

[stwat]

Just a few more pictures







MB tape deck fitted. I think it's made by Becker. It has a remote control
but i can't quite see the point of it!



And a few pictures of the drivers seat bolster resto.
This is before.



And after one treatment.

I have gone over it again another 3 or 4 times now and it looks fantastic.
The stuff i used was Grisons leather re-colouring balm which i highly recomend.
This stuff.
Grison leather re-colouring balm

But i got it cheaper than that from ebay.

[stwat]

I thought it was about time i took and posted some pictures of how the car now sits with its new springs struts and spheres.

No more droopy rear end. B)




Yes that is rust creeping up at the front of the wing :-/

[stwat]

While giving the car some fresh Mobil Super S and a new filter yesterday, i got curious. So i decided to take the rocker cover off to inspect the cams and chain.

I was very pleased to see that it is very clean under there with no oil crud at all. The cams show absolutely no sign of wear whatsoever.


The timing chain is tight and also shows no signs of wear. The same goes for the chain guides.


Not bad at all for a car fast approaching 160,000 miles. Especially one that will have been driven hard all it's life due to the basic nature of the beast

I remember being so frightened of actually buying a 190 2.3-16 because of all the tails of them being very high maintenance and that they break all the time etc etc.

What a load of carp!! This is probably the most reliable car i have ever owned! Admittedly i do change the oil every 2500 to 3000 miles and it is rather heavy on the brakes and tyres(but that's just me having fun) but apart from that it is no different or any more troublesome to run than any of my other mercs have been.

[stwat]

Sorry, i meant to say the car was fast aproaching 166,000 miles not 160,000

[stwat]

I gave the car a new fuel filter and some rear disks and pads.

One thing i noticed is that the red dot on the backplate is directly in line with the handbrake shoes adjusting wheel. Simply line a wheel bolt hole up with the red dot and finding the adjusting wheel with a flat blade screwdriver through the wheel bolt hole is easy peasy

I just love how user friendly the old 190's are

[stwat]

Just a quick update.

I painted the wheels today and im very happy with the result. I started off by rubbing the baked on brake dust from the holes with some 100 grit paper. Then went over the wheel faces with 800 grit to flatten any raised areas and to key them up for the new paint.
I didn't use ant fancy paint, just some carplan alloy wheel paint. The first coat seemed to on patchy The second coat went on a little better but after the third and final coat they looked fantastic
From this


To this


Total outlay, £4.95 for the can of paint and 75p for the masking tape
Who needs fancy expensive wheel resto's

Im going to re do one as im not that happy with it and then il laquer them to give some extra protection.

And yes, i am removing the chromey star bling centre caps as i think they look crap as they sit to proud of the wheel face.

[stwat]

Just a few pics of the car with its freshly painted wheels
I also thought it was about time i removed the ridiculous Ford 'Cosworth' badges from the front wings.

It looks so much better now