before i had my foz, i bought this car...sold my first car to get it, for the princely sum of 1000$

its a 1978 W116 Mercedes 280S AMG. 2.8L straight six, Holley carb. the most povo S-Class haha




yep, its an old pos. but its a rare old pos, and thats what counts.

back in the day, AMG werent affiliated with MB, they were just a tuning shop that had some options for benzes..im pretty sure the W116 chassis is the first one to have AMG bits for it. and mine has a full set of original skirts, plus a rubber (!) boot lip, and AMG badge, which alone is worth about a third of what i paid for the car. oh, and its manual bit of a rarity for oz.

some of the other AMG bits included a tuned engine (crazy rare) a speedo that goes up to 300 or something, plus different ratio diffs..

so the story so far goes something like this. picked her up from the PO in the far eastern 'burbs, drove her back to Bairnsdale, nursing a slippery clutch and a suspended rego..result of the PO not getting a RWC when HE bought the car it still had rego at the time, but it expired in september. got the car home, drove the gf to work the next morning to show it off, but i stalled the beast as i was leaving, and nothing could revive her. got a tow back, and she sat in the street for a week or so.






its such a pretty car...but by god it was foul. ive since learned it was originally white, but it was obvious it had been resprayed. overspray on the headlights, runs in the clear on one corner, and im pretty sure the vertical part of the boot has no clear on it all. skirts had been (badly) put back on, just riveted to the existing panels. front lower grille was in pieces, held together with self-tappers, strips of aluminium and more rivets...but it had new tires

and then theres the interior. nearly the same shade as the outside, seats in a vinyl refferred to as 'MB Tex' which had me fooled as being leather. mint condition, cept for the massive sags when you sat down, plus the tear in the driver's seat. carpets were.....wet. and greasy. atm theyre all stripped out of the car, not sure whether to chuck em or clean em.

once i figured how to take the seats out (sounds straight-forward, but so, so not) i unearthed over $40 in change. it never got clean, so i spent it melbourne chinatown, and legged it outta the restaurant before they refused the filthy pile of coins. lolol

so uh..yeah, after a week or so of poking around this smelly old relic, i bought a massive new battery, which got it going long enough to get it to a servo so i could dilute whatever **** was sitting in there. headed back to my parents place, took it for a roadworthy test, which it failed spectacularily. i was also told in no uncertain terms by the mechanic to quit while i was ahead.

the list:
1. Driver's seat cut - got a cream upper section as a quick fix

2. RH Brakelight n/w
3. LH Driving light n/w
4. Rear door seals u/s- got some new ones, put em in. quite simple, and satisfying
5. windscreen washers u/s - there is garden hose an other chunks of rubber hose conncting the washers to a non OEM pump. i fixed it, went back the next day, and the air is back in the system
6. windscreen wiper blades u/s
7. Battery not secure - bought one without the lip at the bottom. damn!
8. brake fluid u/s - another easy fix! drained out the old crap, in with the new, bleed it, done!
9. Front cross member behind bumper bar bent - tow point snapped, so they wrapped a chain around the bumper fools


bent bar^^ straight bar from wreckers \/\/


still need to get it welded in!

10. front upper inner control arm bushes u/s - replaced the whole damn control arms haha


11. front and rear driveshaft couplings u/s - easy with the right tools! out with the driveshaft, on with new couplings, as well as:
12. driveshaft centre bearing u/s

done in a morning!

13. all 4 brake hoses to calipers u/s - another simple, satisfying, swap-in-new-parts, job.

14. front exhaust muffler leaking....bastard old exhaust system, doesnt have flanges!!! argh. had to use a tree and a hacksaw and a hammer to get the sections apart, and got it welded up at the farm i occasionally work for


15. front suspension cross bar bushes u/s
16. front trailing arm rear bushes u/s ....sweet mother of god, what a job.new bushes can suck a big one, frankly.



getting the old bushes out using any means nessisary. the blowtorch wasnt pictured


front suspension out.....and back in


17. oil leak from power steering pump - mechanic's BS, more likely to be dirty \/ \/
18. wash engine oil leaks and inspect - at least it has had a new head gasket recently, by the looks of the blue sealant drips

19. rear control arm bushes u/s - lol this was fun. i needed special mercedes spring compressors to do it properly, which are expensive and hard to aqquire..so i didnt use any compressors at all. prop shaft off, unbolt the diff, lower on a jack. wasnt 'smooth' but it wasnt a disaster


20. both left & right boot wells rusted out
21. gear shifter boot not fitted - technically its still not fitted, but only coz there is no interior in the car atm haha

22. left front ball joint split - not split now! its melted blowtorch got it out, some bloke of dads got the new one in. turned up on the weekend to find it all done for me


last but not least,
23. Clutch slipping - gah. doesnt seems like much, when described with those two little words..
had to take the starter motor out the get the exhaust out, so i could get the prop shaft out, then had to undo bloody everything, gear linkage, speedo cable, unbolt the slave cylinder.
my two years of mechanical engineering have paid off \/\/ (or is it just from paying with lego)

supporting the engine while lowering the 'box. tiny bloody thing it is xD

gave it a clean with some kero


old vs new friction discs

no wonder it was slipping. got the full kit installed fairly smoothly


put the car back together, went to drive it off the ramps, but it wouldnt go into gear....
bled the clutch, but nope, nothing. cant be the cylinders, they were near new. a bloke on the w116 forum is currently having similar issues, used a pressure kit putting 2bar into the fluid reservoir, that yeilded nada. was tempted to take the 'box back off again, and check everything was lining up, but its unlikely to be the problem in BOTH our cars. currently looking for a kit that'll suck it out the slave cylinder nipple, as that has worked on a similar age benz.

if i can get the clutch fixed, she'll then get $300 of lowering springs. if im feeling rich, some BBS RS rims, 3 piece if i can find em. If im feeling really rich, my long term plan is to eventually spray her back to her original colour, and get all the shiny metal bits coated in black chrome. that, would be effin sweet.

but as she is now, it aint looking great. if she wasnt so rare i wouldve sold long ago..but thanks to the foz, the benz lives on! been out of rego for over 3 months, since i cant renew without a RWC..im planning to put it on a club permit, allowing me to drive it 45-90 days per year, at a tiny fraction of a normal rego's cost.
she'll get there eventually, just might take some time!

I'm not much of a Benz fan, especially the older ones, but i love this thing, and am keen to hear how you get on with it. Would love to see it sprayed back to original with a new interior and all chromed up!

Best of luck and good to see a few little things didn't put an end to your plans.

I like it mate Was a good read. Hopefully she gets up and running soon.

Good for you!

For love or money.

Have fun with it.

Got married to Maria in '79
This looks like our wedding car!
A fellow pharmacist loaned it to us - with him as chauffeur.

My best man n partner were in a '79 Alfetta GTV

My other groomsman and partner were in a '78 Lancia Beta Coupe.

All cars were less than 2 years old at the time.

Take care of this beauty. Chassis' were never the same in the 80s MBs

tint windows black, little flags on the bonnet. EL-PRESIDENTE'

ha ha ha Mafia Staff Car

Love it!

You'll get there in the end.

lol yep, car of choice if you'd like to look like a cuban dictator

got in contact with a bloke i know from the benz forum (he has 5 450SEL 6.9s - top of the range, with 6.9L V8s ) he was once a mechanic for MB, gonna get him to take a look at it in a week or two