OWNER MercEdi (E420)

[JC220]

10/26/2024

A stud welder is just the best thing ever. This would have been a lot more work without it… and i also found some more rust under the rear seats. This will be taken care of when the rear subframe is out too.

View attachment 203143View attachment 203144View attachment 203145View attachment 203146

Great thread and fantastic work there well done

Welding is a tedious task on any car but you will get it all done and know your car inside out at that point! And know also that it will outlive the others on the road which likely have the same rust but no one knows where to look or want to take the time to fix it properly.

If you can get dinitrol wax underseal I highly recommend a product like that as an additional protection. A cavity wax for inside any welded areas like cills etc and a black wax coating on the outside over the new primer / stone chip. It will add very good protection and ensure your hard work stays 100% for decades to come.

Do you have any details on the stud welder above please? Is that an attachment for a welder or a special machine? I normally mig or Tig weld my own studs on so that would be a time saver for the mountain of welding I still have ahead of me on several 124s and 140s.

 

[MercEdi]

Great thread and fantastic work there well done

Welding is a tedious task on any car but you will get it all done and know your car inside out at that point! And know also that it will outlive the others on the road which likely have the same rust but no one knows where to look or want to take the time to fix it properly.

If you can get dinitrol wax underseal I highly recommend a product like that as an additional protection. A cavity wax for inside any welded areas like cills etc and a black wax coating on the outside over the new primer / stone chip. It will add very good protection and ensure your hard work stays 100% for decades to come.

Do you have any details on the stud welder above please? Is that an attachment for a welder or a special machine? I normally mig or Tig weld my own studs on so that would be a time saver for the mountain of welding I still have ahead of me on several 124s and 140s.

Thank you so much! The car will get cavity and underbody wax once it‘s completely repainted. The silicones in the wax don‘t go well with fresh new paint.

This is the spot welder i used for welding on the studs. They have this for when they have to weld in whole quarter panels and stuff like that. It also has a configuration where you can weld on studs. I‘m not sure if this would be viable for DIY use (one of these costs north of 10k€), but hey, a lot of the things we do one here aren‘t, right? But i‘m certain there are cheaper solutions out there.

 

[nocfn]

These pic should have a rating of X warning on them!

 

[MercEdi]

12/28/2024

So i finished up the second axle shaft and started reassembling the wheel carrierrs. I put the wheel bearings in the freezer and heated up the bearing seats. That way they went in very smoothly.



Also got the ball joints fitted and mounted the dust shields. I took a quick spin to my uncles shop as he‘s got a press there, which i used to press in the hubs.




I also pressed out the old drive shaft carrier while at my uncles. For the new one i used a Febi 08539 carrier and a SKF 6006 2RS1 30x55x13mm bearing. In my eyes a good low cost alternative to the almost 200€ OE carrier. The OE dust boot for the drive shaft is NLA, but i found an adequate alternative with the SKF VKJP 2188 boot.



I primed and painted the rear sway bar after removing loose material. Didn‘t grind down the pitting as i didn‘t want to reduce the diameter. Also painted the fuel and brake lines as the cunifer material vedigris.



Finally, i got the underbody painted in 744 and a layer of 2K clear coat. While not original, i think the look is quite good in my opinion. Not a lot to do left before reassembling starts.

 

[MercEdi]

12/29/24 and 12/30/24

Pressed in the differential mounts and did some rust reloval on some parts.



Also got the brake and fuel lines fitted and mounted a new tank ventilation valve. When reassembling the fuel pump package, it dawned on me that i would probably come back to those in the future as the pumps were still the original ones… I got to new Bosch pumps on the way, don‘t wanna open up the fuel system again in the near future.

 

[MercEdi]

12/31/24

Today i removed the tank strainer, didn‘t look too bad after 31 years. I cleaned it in the ultra sonic bath and put it back in. The differential ventilation thing was pretty dirty though. I gave it a good clean and put it back on the diff. Also steel wire brushed the the rear calipers. Chose the ones from my the replacement subframe that i got as they weren‘t rusty at all. They look pretty nice again. I‘m gonna give them some further cleaning and throw on new seals and dust boots later.



I got some good progress on reassembling everything back to the car.



For the front differential bushings, i used this reproduction by Carus parts as the original ones are NLA. I think they are a replacement for the SL cars, but can also be used on the V8 W124 subframe and diff. I reused the top mounting after cleaning it as it‘s threaded, the reproduction isn‘t. The last thing i did today was mounting the diff. The old differential bushings had a shim between them and the diff, the new ones are different in size and i don‘t know how to measure if it needs the shim back or not. Maybe someone of you does?



Looking back at 2024, i can certainly say that my learning curve was pretty steep. This car is my first project in this dimension and am happy for more to come. I wish everyone a happy new year!

 

[MercEdi]

01/01/25

Mounted the handbrakes and the drive shaft. The centering sleeves of the drive shaft didn‘t have play, so i left them alone. Febi flex discs are still containing OE with star and part number ground off.



Then i took on the rear calipers. For the first one, the pistons came out with no effort at all with compressed air. The second one was seized and put up a little fight. I destroyed a piston in the process and learned the hard way that you don‘t pry on these. Luckily i have the to my car original calipers and took a piston of those. Got it out in the end by having constant air pressure and lightly tapping on the piston with a hammer. Cleaned it all and applied new seals, boots and those clips.



To end the day, i wanted to mount the calipers to the car, but i couldn‘t mount the passenger side brake disc as the handbrake pads stood out so far. The reason for that are the hand brake cables… The passenger side is way shorter and thus always pulling the pads out. I wanted to reuse the ones that i got with the spare subframe, but i should have used new ones right away. I‘ll mount new ones once i have them.

 

[MercEdi]

01/02/2025

Put the axle shafts on the car. Before that, i cleaned the threads from the old Loctite.



I figured that it would be a good time to do the front calipers too while waiting for the parking brake cables and the fuel pumps.

 

[MercEdi]

01/03/2025

Finished up the calipers today, but i‘ve lost one of the shims that sit on the piston. Will it harm the dust boot to run it without the shim?



Now that the rear looks so fresh, i need to do the same with the front



Also got the new parking brake cables today and made myself a tool for the retaining springs of the pads. Installing the springs went like a breeze this way… it was a real PITA installing these with pliers…

 

[gsxr]

The missing item on the caliper piston is a heat shield. It won't hurt if this is missing, but the seal will be exposed to more heat.

Love the tool you made for the brake spring!

 

[MercEdi]

The missing item on the caliper piston is a heat shield. It won't hurt if this is missing, but the seal will be exposed to more heat.

Damn, just checked if it‘s still available, and the heat shield for the smaller piston (PN A0004211620) is NLA. I need to look for my lost one tomorrow…

 

[MercEdi]

Aftermarket kits with caliper pistons and heat shields are available though. Still wanna see if i can retrieve the heat shield. If not, my plan was to get a replacement and put it in when i‘ll do the pads the next time.

 

[MercEdi]

01/04/2025

I couldn‘t get hold of the lost dust boot heat shield, so i decided to move on and get the pads installed. For the rear brakes i ordered the wrong hardware. I installed the old pins and throw in the correct hardware later on.



This also made me wonder if i got the wrong front pads? It looks like they don‘t cover all of the disc area they should. I got ATE pads and discs all around. Probably it‘s just me overthinking this…



After installing the pads, i went on and bled the calipers, first bled out the ABS/ASR pump. The brake fluid resevoir was almost empty to begin with. In order to rebleed the ABS/ASR pump, the engine needed to be running and i was missing the fuel pumps for that… luckily they arrived today. Finally got to finish up the fuel pump assembly.



Before starting the engine, i went ahead and did an oil change. The engine had to go through a couple of months with two daily cold starts and no real warm up phase… As you can imagine, the oil was in horrible shape… lots of condensation and it stank of fuel… Maybe this is what lead to my catalytic converters death? I checked the filter for metallic particles, but luckily couldn‘t see any. Thankfully, the car is being pushed in and out of the shop for quite some time now. The dead battery probably contributed to this.



The start up without cats was super loud… can‘t say i didn‘t enjoy it though.

 

[MercEdi]

01/05/2025 and 01/06/2025

Drove the car on to the other lift to tighten the links and control arms under load. I put on my 7,5x17 Monoblock replicas with an offset of 35 to see how that works with the H&R 30mm lowering springs as i have 18“ wheels with a 35 offset coming for the car. It sits about right in the front, but with the restored subframe, it seems like the rear came up a bit. Might also be my imagination. I‘m running the 2 nub spring pads all around.



Had to secure the cables in the back rather ghetto as the original brackets are rusted out and i have yet to find a solition for these. I‘ll try to rebuild the brackets from sheet metal.

 

[MercEdi]

01/11/2025

Finished up the spots on the underbody today which where obstructed by the other lift. After taking care of the last rusty spot, i applied epoxy primer and heated it. Them i applied seam sealant where i ground of the old one. The finishing touch was applying stone chip protection and painting it in 744.
Now i can finally start with the preparations for painting the car.

 

[MercEdi]

The code 864 thing is another mystery.

I have got some infos regarding the code 864 from a german forum from this post.

They were talking about Code 855 on a 92‘ 320CE earlier (this post), which also indicated some nonsense option on that car (855 = V140 M119 MIT NAG (43 FZG.):

„The vehicles often shown here as “hermaphrodites” have the control code 855. How did this come about: internally, they wanted to bring out the MOPF2 (as we know it today) a year earlier in the summer of 1992 together with the 4-valves. Then the sales department suggested splitting up these 2 things (MOPf and engines) in order to keep the car “fresh” twice and above all “longer”. This was the final decision. Internally, the package of new engines was then called “product measures”. All these cars were then assigned the control code 855 for the German market, while export markets were given the “old” engines. Hence the control code. The customer had no influence on this code. After 08/93, the code was dropped again and was later reassigned (as before).“​

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)


So i asked about code 864 and this was the answer:

„...only know these two meanings. I strongly suspect that it is the control code for the 1994 model year. Normally that would be 804, but 86x codes are sometimes used for model years. The car is an E420 with MOPF2. The car ran at Bau38 in Sindelfingen. It was usually supplied with line 1 or 2 of the paintwork from the paint buffer. Based on the completion date, it is of course no longer possible to determine the exact painting date, but based on the completion date, it should have water-based paint. The control systems of the time (in this case PSS) were super good and detailed and were programmed in-house at Mercedes. It really did contain “everything”, so answering these questions was easy back then. However, the systems have long since been switched off and replaced by standardized systems. Unfortunately, the old data was not “archived”.“​

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

 

[TimL]

Speaking of hermaphrodites, I heard the same word applied to some M119 6 Liter AMG engines, which supposedly were of the later model years and had more power than the 381PS (something about differences in the cylinder head?). Do any of the M119 illuminati here know more about this? Paging @gsxr, @Rouven036 @744Brillantsilber, @2phast @gerryvz

 

[gsxr]

The long-standing rumor is that the "standard" AMG 6L M119 builds always made more than 381ps. The general estimate was around 400hp or so. The AMG M119's were purposely derated so as not to make the M120 look bad for making less power from the same displacement.

1996-up M119's had the intake valves downsized, which resulted in an "AMG" intake valve used on the late AMG 6L builds... but AFAIK it was the same size as the early M119's, not larger. I do not know if any late-build 6L M119's ever produced more power vs early builds, more specifically, if ME engines ever made more power than LH-SFI (or, CIS-E).

Also unknown is if the cylinder head porting was the same from beginning to end of AMG 6L M119 production... and was this all hand-ported? Or eventually CNC? No idea. @Klink ?

 

[TimL]

Dave, understood that the engine might have been underrated for model policy reasons, but the question is really specifically whether these higher power hermaphrodite engines existed or are just a myth. Hoping that Rouven has some info on this, since he has just been through his engine and usually has access to some esoteric AMG info

 

[gsxr]

The only possible variation I've heard of is a 6.2-6.3L AMG version, of which allegedly 2 were produced. Zero data exists that I'm aware of and it could be total BS. Would love to know if Rouven or others have additional info!

I'm also not sure what AMG would have done to increase power further. I'm not aware of hotter camshafts or lightweight moving parts (rods, pistons, valvetrain) from AMG. AMG didn't mess with tubular headers, which is how RENNtech squeezed another 10-12hp or so out of their top builds, along with titanium rods / hotter cams / solid lifters on a tiny handful of engines.

 

[Rouven036]

Unfortunately I only have heard rumors and no proper information here.
I remember vaguely some text claiming 408PS from AMG 6.0 W124.
But in what setup no idea - potentially a catless export version or so again that's only speculation and nothing confirmed.
I will ask someone though who might have a lead to someone who could have insights if any of this was ever available.
Parts and documentation wise there is nothing available what I ever could have accessed.

 

[MercEdi]

01/18/2025

Got to install the replacement cat. The housing is, ahem, slightly smaller than the original one. Also sits too far up front. Well, you wouln‘t be able to connect the O2 sensor if it was further back… The problem with it being so far up front is that it interferes with the metal piece, which prevents the drive shaft from hitting the ground in case the flex disk breaks or something. I just removed it for now and i‘ll modify it to fit or find another solution.
Other than that, the fitment is quite good and nowhere near as bad as expected.
It was also the perfect time to mount the new O2 sensor that i got from Rock Auto thanks to @gsxr and @Beater400E, check out this post.

 

[MercEdi]

01/19/2025

Also, the retrofitting madness officially began. I started with the rear curtain i got for the car. It‘s black, but luckily i know somebody who will swap a gray cover and gray trim pieces with my black ones. Although i wouldn‘t have a problem running that it like that in the car as the contrast isn‘t too bad between the black and gray.



I also found a nice set of illuminated sun visors which i couldn‘t pass on. The driver side works fine. Unfortunately i broke the passenger side contact during installation… I hope there is a way to fix the contact… Of course i couldn‘t leave the other contact alone after this happened and it broke aswell… they are really brittle and don‘t require lots of force to break.

 

[gsxr]

Is this part on the roof, where the visor clip screws to the chassis?

 

[MercEdi]

Is this part on the roof, where the visor clip screws to the chassis?

View attachment 206921

That‘s right.

 

[gsxr]

That‘s right.

If not fixable... should be able to get a good used replacement (assuming new ones are NLA). I've never heard of these breaking, so I left dozens of them at junkyards!

 

[MercEdi]

If not fixable... should be able to get a good used replacement (assuming new ones are NLA). I've never heard of these breaking, so I left dozens of them at junkyards!

There was some slight oxidation on the contacts, not sure if that weakened them or something… or i just wasn‘t careful enough…

 

[Maxxximus]

01/19/2025

Also, the retrofitting madness officially began. I started with the rear curtain i got for the car. It‘s black, but luckily i know somebody who will swap a gray cover and gray trim pieces with my black ones. Although i wouldn‘t have a problem running that it like that in the car as the contrast isn‘t too bad between the black and gray.

View attachment 206909View attachment 206910

I also found a nice set of illuminated sun visors which i couldn‘t pass on. The driver side works fine. Unfortunately i broke the passenger side contact during installation… I hope there is a way to fix the contact… Of course i couldn‘t leave the other contact alone after this happened and it broke aswell… they are really brittle and don‘t require lots of force to break.

View attachment 206907View attachment 206908

You can solder a piece of copper wire without insulation bent into the shape of a broken contact. And everything will work fine

 

[MercEdi]

01/25/2025

Finally welded up the last (known to me) rusted out spot.



My better half started sanding down the car. There are a few dents here and there that have to be pressed out. And look at all of those layers… looks like growth rings of a tree… That rear left dection has been painted a couple of times already.



New Pilkington (5328BGNSK, MB-PN: A1246701080) rear glass is also on the shelf as the old one suffers from delamination.



And i need to figure something out for that chrome handle. It oxidated quite badly, you can now fit the bolt head through the left bolt hole…

 

[MercEdi]

I can‘t believe how long i haven‘t updated this thread anymore. Progress has been really slow in the past couple of months as i hit a point with this project where i couldn‘t continue without the help of others. So i‘ll show you a couple of impressions of whats happened since January.

01/26/2025

My better half and i completely removed all the paint to bare metal on the rear panels below the C-pillar area. After that the was coated in some epoxy primer.




02/15/2025

The rear panels collapsed/warped when welding them. So in preparation for the body filler work, they have been pulled out/compressed to minimize the need for body filler. To round it up, the panels were coated with tin to further reduce the need for filler and for corrosion protection.



02/16/2025

Took out the sagging roofliner and brought it to a place to get it redone. I spotted some rust between the sunroof assembly and the body. The whole sunroof would have to come out in order to get rid of the rust properly.



Moving on to the rear and front glass frame. There was some rust, so i bent the upper sheet metal up and flooded the rust with owatrol. Bent and hammered the metal back in place afterwards.

 

[MercEdi]

05/01/2025

The project began to gain traction again and the body work was finished up. The car was almost ready to be prepared for painting.



Took out the sunroof assembly. Honestly quite simple when the front glass is out. I recommend that if you ever need to drop the whole cassette, combine it with a front glass replacement. Lots of small rust spots have been reveiled.




This one stood out for me the most and needs some extra mentioning. It looks like the rust is coming from the inside, in fact i saw a lot of those spots, for example on the hood where the rust came from underneath the paint/coating. Barely/not noticable at all, but when grinding, rust would be reveiled.



Also had to take care of the doors. The driver side door came out as it needed to be replaced.

 

[MercEdi]

05/05/2025

The rest of the body has been prepared for a layer of epoxy primer and a coat of filler.



This is the finished product from the step above. Primer and filler have been applied.



05/11/2025

The 124s have loooots of exterieur parts, don‘t they? You wouldn‘t think that they take up so much space and of course time.



05/22/2025

Mounted up the wheels the car will sit on as i wanted to see how the fenders fit with them and make final adjustments to the fenders before they get painted.

 

[MercEdi]

05/23/2025

Now it gets really exciting! The car has finally been painted. It came out so gorgeous. Just look at the pictures, they say more than 1000 words…



First load of exterieur parts is also through, mmmmh so delicious.



And some more close ups of the body. Freshly painted silver just looks amazing. I can‘t wait to put it all back together. We‘re getting there now.