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Hey guys,
Decided I'd put a quick write up in order to get an opinion or two at the end!
Back home in NZ I've got a '64 W111 200D which I used to drive to school.
Over the years I gave it a paint, lowered it and put some white walls for the finished product!
That now sits back home awaiting the time that I return to the motherland!
End of April this year a friend sent me photos of a reasonable condition 240D W115 they spotted for sale in Alice Springs - Rattly as anything, but cheap enough for what it was I thought, so I snapped it up.
The photo's they sent me:
I had to get it home, 500km north, and being a public holiday I was unable to get an exemption - drove it anyhow and it made the trip without a charm - pure torture sitting on 90km/h with a 130km/h speed limit!
Excuse the conquerers pose!
It was about 4 weeks until I was catching up with my three brothers up in Darwin (1000km North) so I decided to give it a transformation!
First up was to replace the smashed headlight - found a couple down south for a good price and got them shipped up. The chrome was completely rusted inside them so I combined the good and the bad and made one complete.
Both front tires had badly bald edges which turned out to be both outer tie-rods. (No pictures, 'cos that's boring!)
I was tossing up between finding a set of steelies and stock hubcaps and getting some BBS RS's. With freight from China for a set of replicas being only a percentage of what the steels would have cost from across the country I quickly settled on the BBS's. A little research and I decided to go for 16x8's and 205/50's. (All legal sizes for the car which meant no engineers certificate needed - crazy Australian rules!)
It really needed a drop, and I was too rushed to go for bags in the short term, so a night later, and some "customizing" of the original springs, it sat about where I wanted it. Chassis was about 100mm front and rear, but exhaust sat about 40mm at the elbow under the diff - I'd sort that out later!
The shocks were non-existent with a "5 bounce rebound" (Nothing changed when the shocks were removed!) and it was noticeably cheaper to get a set of Bilsteins out of USA than it was to get replacement Monroes (yuck, esp. when compared to Bilsteins) so they got ordered too.
All went smoothly enough with a few nights installing a half decent sound system (4 x 6.5" Splits and a 12" sub in the panel behind the rear seat - no big box rolling around the boot!) and about three weeks after buying it, the transformation was basically complete.
Anyhow, I drove it up to Darwin, all over the show up there without a drama (aside from 5 people and all the gear making the exhaust pretty much drag continuously!) I put them all on the plane and hit the road for the trip home. Somewhere about the 350km-down-750km-to-go-mark, I might have been pushing it a little to get home (110km/hr) when all of a sudden.... Lots of smoke, pinging and banging, and then no power.
Poor thing threw a leg out of bed and breathed its last sigh! These were the few pieces I found back up the road!
And with all my worldly possessions in a bag I prepared to hitch...
Long story short, managed to get a tow (from a good buddy) to a nearby one horse town where a box of beers secured a weeks storage behind the local gas station and 24hrs later I was home on the Greyhound bus (with only the dreamy instagram (or whatever its called that a friend took) to remember the fun times.... (Blah blah blah, I was just tired!
)
Following weekend I drove back up and collected it - please don't judge me for driving a Land Rover, it was given to me and I've fixed it up! When somebody else wants to buy it it'll be gone!
And so, 4000-odd km all around, here it sits. As it has done for almost a month, awaiting its fate in this world.
I started to part it out, and have so far only sold the bug catchers on the front (which I didn't like anyway). As i'm in the middle of nowhere, even if I can find a replacement engine, it'll cost more than the car to get it shipped here. As the dust settles I'm beginning to think about just putting SOMETHING under the bonnet so I can keep using it. I've pondered over jap 4cyl diesels, but the cheap ones are gutless, and the grunty ones are far too expensive. An american 4 cyl diesel, the ultimate 4BT would rock, but cost an arm and a leg to import. As far as 4 cyl petrols go, an SR20DET would be about the best option, but even then, this is heavier than a stock S15. 1JZ would be nice, but then brakes and diff need a decent upgrade which I can't really be bothered with at the moment. 5 cyl Merc diesel turbo would be nice, but hard to find and again, freight would kill. It had been on the mind, and then after seeing niscorts V6 3.8 (Holden here in Oz, I think they're the same as the Buick V6 3.8 in the states) swap this is where I'm leaning. They're almost free, a dime a dozen, reasonable power and also not bad economy.
Let me know where you all think I should go from here - scrap it and move on like I thought initially, or push on through, and if so, any suggestions on what would be a suitable swap!
Decided I'd put a quick write up in order to get an opinion or two at the end!
Back home in NZ I've got a '64 W111 200D which I used to drive to school.
Over the years I gave it a paint, lowered it and put some white walls for the finished product!
That now sits back home awaiting the time that I return to the motherland!
End of April this year a friend sent me photos of a reasonable condition 240D W115 they spotted for sale in Alice Springs - Rattly as anything, but cheap enough for what it was I thought, so I snapped it up.
The photo's they sent me:
I had to get it home, 500km north, and being a public holiday I was unable to get an exemption - drove it anyhow and it made the trip without a charm - pure torture sitting on 90km/h with a 130km/h speed limit!
Excuse the conquerers pose!
It was about 4 weeks until I was catching up with my three brothers up in Darwin (1000km North) so I decided to give it a transformation!
First up was to replace the smashed headlight - found a couple down south for a good price and got them shipped up. The chrome was completely rusted inside them so I combined the good and the bad and made one complete.
Both front tires had badly bald edges which turned out to be both outer tie-rods. (No pictures, 'cos that's boring!)
I was tossing up between finding a set of steelies and stock hubcaps and getting some BBS RS's. With freight from China for a set of replicas being only a percentage of what the steels would have cost from across the country I quickly settled on the BBS's. A little research and I decided to go for 16x8's and 205/50's. (All legal sizes for the car which meant no engineers certificate needed - crazy Australian rules!)
It really needed a drop, and I was too rushed to go for bags in the short term, so a night later, and some "customizing" of the original springs, it sat about where I wanted it. Chassis was about 100mm front and rear, but exhaust sat about 40mm at the elbow under the diff - I'd sort that out later!
The shocks were non-existent with a "5 bounce rebound" (Nothing changed when the shocks were removed!) and it was noticeably cheaper to get a set of Bilsteins out of USA than it was to get replacement Monroes (yuck, esp. when compared to Bilsteins) so they got ordered too.
All went smoothly enough with a few nights installing a half decent sound system (4 x 6.5" Splits and a 12" sub in the panel behind the rear seat - no big box rolling around the boot!) and about three weeks after buying it, the transformation was basically complete.
Anyhow, I drove it up to Darwin, all over the show up there without a drama (aside from 5 people and all the gear making the exhaust pretty much drag continuously!) I put them all on the plane and hit the road for the trip home. Somewhere about the 350km-down-750km-to-go-mark, I might have been pushing it a little to get home (110km/hr) when all of a sudden.... Lots of smoke, pinging and banging, and then no power.
Poor thing threw a leg out of bed and breathed its last sigh! These were the few pieces I found back up the road!
And with all my worldly possessions in a bag I prepared to hitch...
Long story short, managed to get a tow (from a good buddy) to a nearby one horse town where a box of beers secured a weeks storage behind the local gas station and 24hrs later I was home on the Greyhound bus (with only the dreamy instagram (or whatever its called that a friend took) to remember the fun times.... (Blah blah blah, I was just tired!
)
Following weekend I drove back up and collected it - please don't judge me for driving a Land Rover, it was given to me and I've fixed it up! When somebody else wants to buy it it'll be gone!
And so, 4000-odd km all around, here it sits. As it has done for almost a month, awaiting its fate in this world.
I started to part it out, and have so far only sold the bug catchers on the front (which I didn't like anyway). As i'm in the middle of nowhere, even if I can find a replacement engine, it'll cost more than the car to get it shipped here. As the dust settles I'm beginning to think about just putting SOMETHING under the bonnet so I can keep using it. I've pondered over jap 4cyl diesels, but the cheap ones are gutless, and the grunty ones are far too expensive. An american 4 cyl diesel, the ultimate 4BT would rock, but cost an arm and a leg to import. As far as 4 cyl petrols go, an SR20DET would be about the best option, but even then, this is heavier than a stock S15. 1JZ would be nice, but then brakes and diff need a decent upgrade which I can't really be bothered with at the moment. 5 cyl Merc diesel turbo would be nice, but hard to find and again, freight would kill. It had been on the mind, and then after seeing niscorts V6 3.8 (Holden here in Oz, I think they're the same as the Buick V6 3.8 in the states) swap this is where I'm leaning. They're almost free, a dime a dozen, reasonable power and also not bad economy.
Let me know where you all think I should go from here - scrap it and move on like I thought initially, or push on through, and if so, any suggestions on what would be a suitable swap!
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