The Ruination of A Once Fine 'Cedes - W124 Estate

[Youngthugga]

So yesterday I got the rear fender lips taken care of.
There is one tiny rust bubble on the face of the driver fender and I decided that instead of rolling the lip up and cracking the paint where the rust spot was I'd just CUT the lips out.

It was so easy, I'm never rolling fender lips again.

Started by taping the fender up and tracing a line to cut.
My friend decided to have some fun with the sharpie.

Cutting

DONE.

Then ran up to Lowes to grab a file and found this little gap, only got to ollie it before getting kicked out.


Filed the lips smooth, and hit em with some rust preventer and black paint.
Finished product:


Then we went and skated a local spot and filmed a little mess around line.

Sorry about the horrible quality pictures/video.
Tomorrow I'm going to go try and make some super yolo eccentric caster/camber plates from a mkv gti work upfront to solve my fitment issues.

[willshaffer]

lower it

[hinrichs]

okay now it makes sense, thank you.

[Youngthugga]

LOVing it!

LOVing your kia!

[Youngthugga]

front suspension cofuses me, but in to see more of this.

Yeah, I'm not getting what's going on up there either. Do the ESMs just have really thin backpads or something? I didn't have any trouble fitting ET32s on my sedan, and my MAEs have about the same amount of lip as those ESMs look like they do.

Im confused what you have going on in the front as well... I ran 16x9 ET20 on my last black w124, esms as well, I got away with a 3mm spacer up front.

I dont get the coilover with no actual coil but just a helper spring, and still the stock spring but cut in there.

SO, to be completely honest I'm not sure what's going on either . I've spoke to several people who've all pointed my lack of brake clearance issues to the Mercedes floating caliper design (floating calipers expand with new pads reducing clearance). My first thought was that the wagons had a larger front caliper being a heavier car, but from what I can tell online the wagon brakes are no different from the sedan calipers you're running, Mr.Wheelwhore.

And as for the front suspension, it's about to be redone. The reason I'm still running the stock spring and only the helper is because the stock tophats on w124's are made of thin aluminum coated in rubber, and aren't made to withstand the full weight of the car. With the full e36 coil and no spring I'd run into binding issues (these don't have strut top bearings) and potentially blow through my upper mount. And as it turns out this shit rides really nice with cut spring and a helper to cushion the rebound. That being said I'm ditching the stock tophats in favor of some custom camber plates in the next few days. So the full e36 coils will go in and the stock spring will be outta there quicker than you can say 'damn those wheels might fit now.'

[hinrichs]

I dont get the coilover with no actual coil but just a helper spring, and still the stock spring but cut in there.

[244Brick]

LOVing it!

[AMGwheelwhore]

Im confused what you have going on in the front as well... I ran 16x9 ET20 on my last black w124, esms as well, I got away with a 3mm spacer up front.

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

front suspension cofuses me, but in to see more of this.

Yeah, I'm not getting what's going on up there either. Do the ESMs just have really thin backpads or something? I didn't have any trouble fitting ET32s on my sedan, and my MAEs have about the same amount of lip as those ESMs look like they do.

Anyway, tuned in if for no other reason than this wagon has the only correct W124 color scheme

[nsogiba]

Nice wagon. I always have had a soft spot for these 90s body styles.

[hinrichs]

front suspension cofuses me, but in to see more of this.

[Youngthugga]

Sup Guys!
My name is Austin, I'm 18 and I'm a drift kid from the fail state, Florida.
Long story short I've been around drifting my entire life and I picked up
what I thought to be my dream car about 8 months ago,
an SR powered s14 'missile' covered in bondo and cheap primer.
I spun the megan coils all the way down, welded the diff and drifted the piss out of it.
I loved it.

I fucked around on the street daily. did burnouts everywhere I wasn't supposed to.
and as a result got in a lot of trouble..
In a span of 6 months I had racked up 2 careless driving tickets and a reputation with every cop in Jax.
After the second ticket I decided I needed to get rid of the car to keep myself out of trouble.
Sold the car for more than I picked it up for. And decided I needed something to squad around Sowo with my Browo's in. Hitched a ride down to Orlando the next weekend to get this:

An absolutely MINT 1995 E320 Estate, 130k on the clock and full service records dating back to before I could walk. (I have more non-iphone stock pictures to upload tomorrow)

The night before I drove down to get the car (risky), I placed an ebay order for every part I'd need to get it on the ground... and wheels
TA Technix E36 coilovers
Non SLS rear control arms
Non SLS swaybar endlinks
Saab 900 Rear struts
spacers/extended wheel bolts


..AND 16X9 +20 ESM 002's in the 5x112 flavor

(I know they're fake wheels, but they were college-kid budget friendly wheels to hold me over til I can build cool wheels this summer.)

While I finished up my first semester of college up in Jax, parts were showing up daily at my parents house in Tampa.
The semester ended last Wednesday, I drove down Thursday,
and Friday was suspension install day!

I tried to document things well but as I dug farther into it I stopped taking pictures:

Loosened the strut bolts with everything else still bolted up.
stock suspension, strut dropped down, spring being compressed.

If you don't have a MB spring compressor tool you can use advance style hook compressors with some massaging. WARNING Using the incorrect tool on these springs can be dangerous, I've done this a few times and thought I was gonna break my face before I got them fully compressed. Also, Your life will be 10 times easier if you remove the sway bar, letting the control arm drop all the way down, learned that the second time around.

Goofed around and skated for a while. (1UZ miata project on the side )
IMG]http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j340/AlloydHigginsphoto/58351B37-6C07-4D4B-AB24-721552B96EFE.jpg[/IMG]
Got the fronts out and the TA Technix coils in, helper spring only spun all the way up, and 2 coils cut from stock spring.

Then we went to grab food and I snapped a pic of just the fronts in.

When we got back from food it was dark and I put the phone down in favor of trucking through the rears. I'll grab a picture of the rear setup tomorrow, but the install was as follows.
-Unbolt everything from the rear control arm
-drop control arm and spring
-cut SLS (self leveling suspension) line and cover yourself in hydraulic fluid.
-install new (used) non-SLS control arms/Saab struts and stock springs sans 2 coils.
-plug the remaining SLS line with a big bolt wrapped in teflon tape and RTV around the head to ensure no seepage occurs.

After everything was done I ran up to the gas station for a picture:

More horrible iphone pictures from the last few days:


I'm waiting til the end of the month to put tires on the wheels. Though I did a testfit yesterday and I'm going to have to get way gnarlier than I thought I was with the front fenders. My understanding was that I'd need a 3mm spacer up front to clear caliper, but because Mercedes used floating calipers on these models and the car has brand new brake pads, I barely cleared caliper with the 15mm's I had for the rear. And these cars have no stock front camber adjustment..
So instead of being 16x9 +17 up front it's going to be 16x9 +5.. I have a solution, but first, Pictures.


And the rears with natural camber and the 15mil spacer I planned on running.


I found a set of camber plates I can make work locally. I'll have Front suspension progress to post in the next few days. Hope you like the wagon, thanks guys!