Medium Pimpin' - 1995 E300 diesel build

[Ey3dol]

also, this is completely unrelated to the air install, but where did you get those clear corner lights next to headlights?

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

DANG finally!

I know, it's been a bit of a wait for everyone involved . It feels so damn good to have it basically done at last.

Looks amazing! Get some rear spacers on there and it will be perfect.

This was a satisfying read. Your car looks awesome!

Looks awesome!

Nice work, it definitely payed off. This thing is perfect!

wow now im even more excited to get mine done. Those pictures of the whole install part trimming brackets is really going to come in handy. Nice work man!

Thank you all so much! I'm ordering 15mm spacers and some longer lugs this evening.

This better be at leavenworth drive.

I'm certainly thinking about it! Do you know if they've announced a date for this year yet?

also, this is completely unrelated to the air install, but where did you get those clear corner lights next to headlights?

The corner lamps are Depo; I just got 'em off some random seller on Amazon. I will say, they don't fit quite as good as stock, so I've got my eyes out for some Hellas which are supposed to fit better. Depending on what color your car is, the earlier all-amber corners, or even better, the dark amber Euro corners, can look fantastic as well. Myself, I'm actually getting really tempted to change up the look of the front end, maybe to go with crystal headlamps and turns. We'll see, there's plenty of other crap to fix first.

[mike-81-240d]

Should be June 14th, as it's always the second Saturday of June. Just so happens to be on my birthday this year... That's rad

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

^ marked on the calendar. Maybe us PDX StanceWorks folks can come up with a mini-caravan or something.

So, I have a mystery for you all. I posted this elsewhere, but the builds section gets an awful lot more traffic, so whatever. Anyway, I've got the e-Level all calibrated, and I've noticed on air down, the AccuAir control unit is slowly pulsing the valves, alternating between front and rear, which is causing the car to rock back and forth as it goes down. Here, here's a little video to illustrate what's going on:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz7yC-yNmf8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz7yC-yNmf8[/ame]

One gentleman in the other thread suggested I try slowing the fronts down, which I'm going to try, but it looks (and feels) like the rear is pulsing as well. Any thoughts?

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

So yesterday I ordered a pair of these:



Went over to the local Baxter Auto Parts, which is usually awesome, since most of the guys who work there are 200 years old, but mysteriously I got the one kid that works in the place.

"Hey, I need some lug bolts, cone seat, M12 x 1.5, 39-ish mm long."
"Uhh, do you know the knurl on them?"
"What?"
"The knurl, like where they go through the hub."
"No, lug bolts. You're talking about lug studs."
"Uhh."
"For a Mercedes. A '95 E-class."

At this point, I think it finally clicked, and he ordered something for me on the computer. I'm very curious as to whether what arrived in their warehouse this morning has any resemblance whatsoever to what I intended to order. I guess I'll find out this evening. It's always an adventure...

In all the dicking around with the air ride system, I've been neglecting some repairs I've needed to get done. The first was this:



Yep, the dreaded W124 window regulator failure.

When the W124 was designed, they thoughtfully included a big old monster hole in the inner door skin big enough to fly a jet through, which makes changing the regulator a really nice and easy job. Unless of course, you have a late model with door speakers. If that's the case, you get a big fucking unnecessary metal bracket riveted right god-damn smack in the middle of the opening whose sole function is to hold a single bolt on the the speaker pod. WTF.



The secret is to get the regulator down to the bottom of the door and remove the motor before trying to pull the regulator out. You then have to snake the new regulator into the door, get it roughly positioned, and install the motor inside the door. It's kind of a pain in the ass.

Hmm, three triangle-shaped objects appear to have mysteriously vanished:



After much fucking about with the new regulator, I managed to get it in place:



Yay, I can go through the Taco Bell drive through again!

It was too nice a day to not give the car a well-deserved and much-needed bath, so I washed him off and took him for a drive. I simply cannot say enough about how pleased I am with how the car handles on the air suspension. I do need stiffer dampers at some point, but it's simply an excellent ride. While I was out in the sun, I snapped a couple crappy iPhone pics:




Afterwards, I picked up my girl downtown, and we went out to dinner. Nighttime and the urban environment is really where this car feels most at home.



We met a friend at a little Scandinavian bar nearby, and drove home with the sunroof open letting the cool clear air in. My girl, who isn't the most effusive about such things, paused in the middle of our conversation and said to me, "You know, this is a really beautiful car." I couldn't help but put on a big stupid grin.

More to come soon...

[Marsss]

she's a keeper then!

[DER E30]

Funny how the guys at NAPA, autozone or other "neighborhood" shops often have no idea what you are talking about...

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

she's a keeper then!

Yeah, she's a good one

Funny how the guys at NAPA, autozone or other "neighborhood" shops often have no idea what you are talking about...

So, about that.

Lookie lookie what arrived today:



Excited, I ran over to Baxter's to go pick up the lug bolts they ordered and then never called to tell me they were in. After, no joke, trying to bring me light bulbs instead of lug bolts, the guy brought me my box. And inside...



Ball seat. FUCK.

After 15 minutes of dicking around with the guy bringing me bolts that were either not cone seat, not anything close to 39mm, or not the right thread pitch, I was told they couldn't do anything for me, even though I had a part number with the correct specs that they theoretically could order. Great.

I've got an order in elsewhere. We'll see what arrives.

Fucking auto parts stores.

[Wuzie]

God, some people. Shouldn't be working in an auto parts store if you can't get simple tasks done right. And if you don't know ask for help instead of ordering the wrong damn part.

Loving the build so far though, looks great on the wheels!

[baggedb16sentra]

how you are sitting is how I want to be. This is such a nice ride!!

[Chasen88]

Very nice build.

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

Loving the build so far though, looks great on the wheels!

how you are sitting is how I want to be. This is such a nice ride!!

Very nice build.

Thank you all so much!

I tried to mount the spacers to the rear, but it looks like I'm going to have to do a light pull on the fenders to clear the way I want. Waiting for a sunny day, and I'll get out there with a hammer. I'm also waiting on some goodies from BagRiders that are on intergalactic backorder, and then I'll have more updates for you all!

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

AWW YISSSS, the last of my air ride shizzle is on its way from Vermont or wherever! This is like my 32000th order from BagRiders, I'm practically on a first-name basis with those guys.

So, the driver's seat in this thing has always been pretty f'd up. Mercedes used perforated leather in these things for reasons only understood in Stuttgart, and it just doesn't hold up over the years. In my car's case, the sheer misery of being in California for nearly two decades appears to have further sucked the life out of the driver's seat.



The tears in the leather are obvious, but the bolster is showing lots of wear too, to the point where the dye has been worn down. The leather is also just sort of gross from the years of general neglect this car went through with its approximately 300 previous owners.

I went over to Beaverton Auto Upholstery today, who have awesome reviews on Yelp, and got a quote for recovering the driver's seat and replacing the center panels in the passenger's (which are showing similar but less pronounced wear). $950. Ouch. And that leaves the remainder of the passenger's seat looking worn, if not damaged. New covers from Pelican Parts are also $950, and there's a worrying lack of images or detail on their site.

At this point, I think I'm going to find a used grey seat cover for the driver's in acceptable condition, and try to re-dye both front seats with Leatherique. I've seen some great results elsewhere, and if I can get a year or two out of it, well, hell that's a pretty good deal.

Has anyone used the Leatherique re-dye or some competitor? Thoughts before I throw down a few hundred dollars on a likely-disastrous project?

EDIT: And whoever gave my thread a 5-star rating, you're awesome.

Here's some shiny-shiny to hold you all over until I stop whining and some cool stuff starts happening:

[chompsticks]

those flipping window regulators..... PITA! I like those brackets though. Wondering if the rear would work on a wagon. any idea?

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

You've got SLS in the back, yes? I've seen an SLS system all of once in my life. My understanding is that when it works, it's awesome, but it usually doesn't.

Were your wagon mine, my first thought would be to see if I could hack the SLS struts to see if they could be used for height control. I have zero idea what the range on an SLS strut is, though, and it probably wouldn't work, but whatever

If my recollection of the SLS system is correct, you've got regular ol' coil springs back there, and all the height control nonsense is handled by a special shock absorber. If that's the case, I'm pretty sure you could use brackets of my design. If I remember right, though, the SLS shocks are portly little fellas, so you'd probably want to replace them with thinner, regular shocks, since the rear suspension is so claustrophobic.