Daily 190E

[Rocambolesque]

This week I went through old boxes of parts with my boss at work. Then, we encountered those 2 items:



Its an Audi turbo i5 wastegate and a NOS TCI line-lock. My boss said "here, you can have them". Hey, this is just how the turbo Jetta project began... The turbo will have to wait after my USA roadtrip, but the line-lock can go in before!

Also, I just ordered 4 new Kumho 195/50/15 tires. I'm gonna repaint those wheels and do spacers, probably 20mm in the back and 10mm in the front. Gotta work with what I have!

[Rocambolesque]

Tires have arrived!

[TWM Performance]

Love the build! Can't wait to see more progress

- Renato

[Motoman325]

very nice car

you don't me asking, how do you hook up the line lock?

[KrautnotRice]

Subscribed for more. I love 190Es...

[Rocambolesque]

very nice car

you don't me asking, how do you hook up the line lock?

The line lock is a very simple device. Its just a valve that blocks one of your brake lines. You put that on the brake line that goes to the front wheels. You cut the line, put fittings and flare it. Then you put the button somewhere handy inside the car. To operate, you brake, press the button and hold, release the brake and stomp the loud pedal! Once you release the button, it releases the brakes. I don't know if I'll have time to hook it up before leaving though, and I'm not sure I want to touch the lines on the car haha!

Roadtrip preparation has officially started. I quit my job and I only work on the car for the next 2 weeks, then after that I'm leaving!


I quickly found out that winter has taken its toll on the poor car. I swear this wasn't there last fall!


But that got dealth with quickly (along with a few other spots under the car)


I was hesitant about painting the wheels. With such a large flat surface and rattle cans skills that need improvement, I was worried about a blotchy finish. Decided to go for it anyways, turned out better than expected Got the tires mounted after, and gave the wheels a good wax



Took the single wiper out of the car. Those like to fail after all those years because the grease inside dries up and the half moon gear gets stripped. Mine was starting to slow down and get stuck on the middle of the windshield. Look inside, its cool engineering:



I had some red vinyl layin around, so I did some parts of the backup lights. This way you only see the white part when you're behind the car with your eyes at the level of the lights. I thought about doing the amber part, but I think it looks good as is.



I also did things like the fuel filter and voltage regulator, but I didn't take pictures... Tomorrow I'm going to my parts supplier to pick up about 500$ worth of parts. I'll return soon with more updates!

[Jfitz]

Diggin it. I'm in.

By the way, let me know if you want to sell those front seats. I have a need for some 190 seats.

[Rocambolesque]

Last fall I wanted to change all 3 engine mounts but couldn't figure out how to access the top bolt of the driver's side one, so I changed 2 and left the others like that. Now I gt it figured out, you had to remove the fuel distributor The metering plate was sticking a bit, so I cleaned it.


This car never had a working handbrake. The cables were cut under the car. I removed the rear discs and found this:

It was seized open, the linings overheated and exploded. After many hours spent un-seizing everything I got all 4 corners done with new brakes.


I also tried de-badging the rear, but some parts of the clearcoat came off with the old glue. I stuck the badges back on.


The engine was drinking a lot of oil. These old Merc motors are know to have the valve seals go bad. So I got myself a spring compressor and went to town.


Unfortunately, I couldn't get the compressor on the exhaust valve of the 4th cylinder because the firewall is in the way. Still got 7 out of 8, I'll just burn 1/8th of what I was doing before.

This got stripped down and painted. I'll install it tomorrow.


Finally got the car back on the ground with the new tires. Holy wheelgap!


Belly pan clearance is adequate for a 10000 km trip on a mostly abandoned road, so I guess I'll only cut chop some springs when I get back. Sorry to disappoint haha


Finally got to replace those shitty faded plastic DOT lights with euro ones


How I left it tonight


Tomorrow I button up the engine and finish the interior, Tuesday I'm getting an alignment and Wedneday I'm hitting the road towards Chicago!

BONUS: my old Jetta now sits on BBS RM's (+repainted most of the car)! Always wanted some, could never afford/find a good deal. The new owner really did a great job on it!

[Rocambolesque]

I came back from my route 66 trip. The car did 13000 km in 27 days without any major issues. It has all my respect now haha. This trip was probably the best thing I did in my life since a while. Basically I drove to Chicago, then I took the 66 to LA, south to San Diego (went to Tijuana for a night too, by foot), back up the PCH, then back to Chicago via I-80 and finally back home in Montreal.

Here's the car before the trip, fully compounded and waxed. Major improvement in the looks department.



Look at that reflection hehe


And a few cool pictures from the trip:
Boots Court, Carthage, MO


66 Drive-In in Carthage


Galena, KS


My motel in Chandler, OK


Bridgeport, OK


Route 66 is so calm, no traffic, no cops, almost no speed limits at some points. Very therapeutic to drive.



Cadillac Ranch


Glenrio, TX


Cool place with a cool owner near Tucumcari, NM


Near Albuquerque


Somewhere in NM


Grand Canyon


Sitgreaves Pass, AZ (almost overheated there!)


Roy's in Amboy, CA


Santa Monica, CA


Cool Ford in San Diego


PCH


Yosemite


Elko, NV


Bonneville Flats!


Wyoming


Now some of you may have heard that the cops here in Quebec are cracking down real hard on anything that's lowered... That means this car will head into a new direction. The thing will get lowered a bit more just to close the wheelgap and then I'll get spacers. It will still look kinda OEM to the untrained eye, so maybe I'll be under the radar. The little 4-banger had absolutely zero power in the high-altitude regions of the western USA. This needs to get adressed soon...

[Rocambolesque]

The engine's been leaking and burning more and more oil these days, even with the 7 new valve seals. One day I found oil in the coolant so it was time to order parts to do the headgasket.

I took one last drive and one last picture haha:


Then I started the job by removing everything


After a lot of work and swearing I finally got the head out


Looking inside, I found an insane amount of carbon buildup, probably because of all that oil that has been burning. It was so thick that at first glance I thought the pistons were flat, but after cleaning one of them I found out they were slightly domed with recesses cut for the valves! Cylinder wall still had crosshatching on them, so that's good


I sent the head to the machine shop, they had to weld it because there was damage to #4's chamber. Here it is all cleaned up, welded and milled.




Since the head was out, I decided to design a basic turbo manifold. I've been pondering with the idea for a while, and with that done I think it would be easy and cheap. I thought about putting a cam to wake up the motor a bit, but I could probably turbo it for 1000$ and get 30-40 extra horses and much more torque, which is really what this little motor needs. This design uses regular weld-els and a T2 flange. I could get a T25 with internal wastegate for quick spoolup, limit boost to 5-6 psi, no intercooler and handle fuel with one or 2 of these 30# injectors plumbed right in the charge pipe with an AIC controlling them...


I finally slapped the rebuilt head back on it and it ran perfectly for like 5 minutes. Then a lifter collapsed. I eventually replaced it and after that it was all good. It even felt like it picked up a bit of power!

[Vladi]

I like it a lot.

Looks like an awesome roadtrip too!

[Dome]

Really nice 201 man, had two of them by myself in the same colour combination. Can't wait to see more

[Laef]

Stylé !

Pretty jealous of the roadtrip too

[Respect Till Death]

fucking awesome dude, keen to see how this turbo idea pans out! That road trip sounds like it would have been fucking perfect!

[Rocambolesque]

Back at it again. I parked the thing in november and got myself another car to avoid damaging the fragile undercarriage of the Benz with salt. Since I had nothing but good memories of sliding my old Volvo 940 around just about any corner during previous winters, I decided to look for another Volvo. I found a baby blue '89 240 and a '98 S70 T5 SE for 1000$. It was a tough decision between the 2; the 240 had the old-school ruggedness old Volvos are known for but needed tires, brakes, a steering rack and many other things. The S70 was ready to rock and the muffler was already cut-off for maximum 5-pot soundtrack. I ultimately got the S70, but now I kinda regret it. The only thing this car has is a powerful engine (and reliability so far!). The driving dynamics aren't very good and the thing understeers through snow like nothing else. Of course the handbrake is broken, I can't even kick the tail out to correct. Lesson learned: next time get a 240! Here's a picture I took back in november with my phone:



Anyways, I ended up getting a boost gauge for it and found a boost controller hanging disconnected in the engine bay. I tried hooking it up to get 13 psi, but I found out this controller is a bleed type and is missing the T part. I ordered a new one but haven't recieved it yet. For now it's stock boost.



Back to the Benz. I didn't really work on it from November to January. In late January a friend helped me pull it out of hibernation (suprisingly the CIS-fed engine started better than the EFI'd mill in the Volvo) and put it on stands.



First thing I did was pull the front control arms, sway bar, springs, and all 4 calipers.




The control arm bushings must have been dry-rotted since like 2002 and both balljoints were close to imminent failure (real fun when that happens with inboard springs...) I got new Sportline bushings and Febi balljoints for them. Removing the old stuff was pretty hard. I had to go to a DIY garage and use an air chisel to get the bushings out and smack the balljoints with a BFH. I POR-15'd and painted the arms and rebuilt them with the new parts. Looking just like new:



All 4 calipers were also blown to shit. The fronts had loose guide pins and were wearing the pads crooked. For some reason, in the rear I have 3 pads that are about the same thickness and one that is about 1/2 the thickness of the 3 others. Also, I had 4 different bleeder types on them, meaning that bleeding the brakes required 4 different wrenches. So I got new guide pins, seals, bleeders, HEL braided brake lines and rebuilt the things like new. The pistons in them weren't 100% perfect but I guess I'll be fine for now. I also got Stoptech pads for the fronts. Here is the finished result:




Now I'm currently redoing and (finally) chopping the front springs down. Next on the list is to drop the rear subframe and rebuild the thing. It's a big job but it has to be done. I'll probably get to it next weekend...

Also, I'll re-host the dead pics this week!