Yesterday afternoon, on my way home from work, I picked up the new Thermostat for the inlet air valve. It is just a tiny very simple part.
So, once again, open up the W123.
Very simple to get the whole assembly off, just undo four screws and that’s it. The whole thing (see the drawing in one of the earlier posts) slides out.
Here you can clearly see the little thermostat valve. It actuates a pushrod that moves the cold / warm air valve.
Just popped the old one out and compared it to the new one (on the left). The difference is obvious, the right one is broken. At this ambient temperature (approx 23oC) it should be fully extended.
Popped the new one into the frame. Looks good!
Working properly again. The new thermostat keeps the warm / cold air valve in the full open position once again!
I had washed and waxed the W123 earlier and I am still doing endless little tidying up jobs. But it is beginning to look really smart!
Spotted a tiny bit of rust on the left front wing. So a bit of sand papering, masking tape, rust binder and a bit of new paint.
Twice a year very close inspection of the open roof. These are notorious for rusting very badly and that will mean very expensive repairs. Found a few spots of rust and dealt with it.
The W123 is known as the last properly designed, engineered and built Mercedes. They did everything in house more or less. So it is supposed the last legendary Mercedes Quality car. To a large extent this is true. These cars are extremely well put together and clock phenomenal miles and years. However, they also rust badly. In fact I daresay it is probably the most rust prone car I have ever owned. More so than my Alfa, or in the past Triumphs.
Anyway, the W123 is just about ready for the Concour d’Elegance in a few weeks time. I am really looking forward it. Stay tuned. So with it all clean and polished I put her (according to my wife it is a she and she is called Brunhilda (by my wife, not by me), into her pyjama.
This Sunday we will visit a nice event. It is held in one of many castles/estates we have here in the Netherland. Which means we will take the Jaguar to drive up there. Best car for visiting castles, obviously!
So a quick wash and shine was in order:
I like washing and cleaning my cars. All part of the fiddling. I am not a real great detailer, but I like to think I do manage half a decent job. Over the years I have developed a certain routine that works for me. And I have used many different cleaning products. This is my current ways of working.
I use my high pressure washer to give the car an initial wash down. I use these special soap canisters that fit onto the pressure washer. So it spouts out high pressure water with soap. Works really well on the wheels.
I have an industrial type of vacuum cleaner and of course my special very Dutch door mat flogger!
All cars get a clay-bar/proper wax job once or twice a year. Throughout the year the wax is maintained with various products. I have started using the two products on the left recently and they work extremely well.
The Yellow bottle is a soap. Use it in a bucket of warm water and with a special washing mitt I clean the car. Then another hose down with the high pressure washer. Next I spray this special stuff from the blue bottle. All you do next is hose it down. Both these two products do a pretty good job, each on their own, restoring the wax. But I found when using them in tandem the result is as good as a proper wax job. It is a lot faster though.
I have this special window polish (little bottle at the back). It does a really good job on the front window. Removes all dirts, tar, whatever deposits. Next I clean it with my special window cleaner. I bought this some time ago, when I took the Jaguar to get its window fixed. (see some posts earlier). Again, this is industrial stuff, the stuff the pro-s use. It is expensive, but works well. I use it on all windows.
The red bottle is some oily liquid that restore/rejuvenates plastics and rubbers. I must have tried dozens and dozens of these. This one does pretty good on most of the plastics and rubbers. Not so great on dashboards. I have some other stuff for the dashboard.
It takes me about 1.5 - 2 hours to clean one of my cars like this. That includes getting all the tools ready and cleaning up afterwards too. Not too bad. Mind you the current Dorrestein Fleet has 5 cars.
Jeroen