Restoration: Pre-preliminary of the 9966 km S 320

After a long reflection and precipitation, I decided to keep and preserve this 9966 km 1995 S 320. Not an easy decision, I had to dig up some positive motivations and even break my principles. You might think if a car with this mileage looks great, it wouldn’t be the effort made by whoever took it over. Well, this is current status.

Initial inspections have proven that this low mileage car has suffered too much irreversible damage to the exterior, some of which have even exceeded the worst you can get after 500,000 km. It is definitely not an easy task to preserve what we got to what it shoud be. Apart from all the negatives, I tried hard to find a few reasons to convince myself to do so.

• It’s hard
  This car doesn’t need a restoration, nor the so-called preservation we did on Nonna in the past. It needs to be restored to the way it should be with 9966 km, not brand new but certainly mint. This is more challenging than anything we have done in the past, I think we finally need such a challenge after trying everything. It’s a chance to improve us.
• It’s still factory
  Initial inspection shows that the car has almost no signs of work except that I removed the carpet under the dashboard to replace the ignition lock. This will provide us with a very valuable reference for restoring 140s, because the factory new condition of the car’s interior and chassis is very difficult to understand through pictures. With this car, at least future work on similar cars will be more precise.
• It’s a opportunity
  Scavenged cars like this makes me more superstitious about what fate gives us, rather than what we should desperately seek. If we can do something good for this car, then there should be something good waiting for us. As an speciliast on the 140, maybe only I can do the best.

This following work summary is not a preliminary review, but the necessary work before the preliminary review, so a pre-preliminary. It is not even rellax to review the car directly, we must consider what things may continue to damage it. The interim goal is to enable it to move by itself to the location where the “before” photo will be taken.

The trailer was unloaded in our “graveyard” as nobody knew its mileage when it was unloaded here as a donor. It is about 100 meters from our workshop, including two gentle slopes.

Preliminary inspection found that the filler cap rusted very badly, I have never caps bad like this. Because, this isn’t even a Mercedes cap. Where did the original cap go? There are many oddities to this low mileage car, I’ll discover them one by one.

Now the fuel gauge shows the tank is empty. If the sender is working fine, where did the fuel go? The cap was unlocked for the first time by the central locking pump after we took over the car and powered it up, and the central control pump still works fine. So it’s not that the junkyard guys pumped out the remaining fuel, they can’t open the filler cap.

The trunk contained many women shoes just maintained before the car was abandoned. With laundry tags on them, which did not seem to be left there intentionally by the owner, so it must have been abandoned quite suddenly, and there was still fuel when the car stopped.

We are not rush to start it, and we can’t, because the starter doesn’t respond when key turned. When its original owner last parked it, she locked the doors with the infrared remote control, the immobilizer is still active now. This April 1994 car is equipped with FBS 1a immobilizer system. Fortunately, it is not complicated, we just need to remove the original infrared module, borrow the module and remote control from other donors to activate the power.

Now the gears can be shifted with the help of the donor’s ignition lock, but we are not in a hurry to push it 100 meters. If it can go on its own, I shouldn’t risk it with a forklift. I still have hope for the inside of the tank.

I removed the fuel sender to see what was going on in the tank and this is what I got.

There is still fuel in the tank, if it could still be called fuel, which has settled into four layers, with the black gel at the bottom sticking to the fuel gauge.

Fuel sender is pretty rusted inside, but I don’t want to lose any original part of this car. I was hoping to remove all the rust, but oh my goodness, the track on top is badly corroded. Now the sensor won’t slide over it, it’s a dud.

It’s already impossible to start the car and let it walk to the lift. Now there are more bad pictures: the fuel tank and all the lines related to the fuel may not only need work, but will prove to be unrepairable.

Anyway, even if the tank is fine, we have to change the oil first. So let’s tow it… One more thing, the trunk lock was destroyed by the junkyard. I found a donor trunk lock and installed it. The original lock is completely unrepairable. When I pry the trim clip with a thin flat screwdriver with some guilt, I found that it already has prying marks. Well, what kind of work would a car with such mileage needed?

The taillight strip was also broken into two halves by a junkyard drill, and is only fixed to the body as a whole by nuts, but it is original.

When I tried to fix the damaged rear bumper to the body again, I found out why the clips of the trunk liners have pry marks. This rear bumper was replaced, this one used to be green. Well, why does a car with 9966 km need a new rear bumper? Not even repaired, but from another car. Now we can be thankful that this rear bumper that didn’t survive didn’t belong to this car anyway.

Finally we made it to the lift. Now that we are here we have another priority to do which is to see how the chassis is. My main concerns are how the forklift has damaged the weak floor sheet metal and how the suspension has rusted over the past 30 years. There are still some things that may overturn my decision to keep this car.

The chassis is a bit worn for this mileage, but not too bad for this age. The indoor parking lot where this car is located must have water deposit.

And the soft belly sheet metal dented by forklift, but the PVC coating was not damaged.

Unfortunately, we manage to retain as much of the factory installation as possible, but the fuel tank is no longer within this range. To completely clean the tank, it must be removed from the car, which means removing the fuel line connected to it from underneath. In order to preserve the original beauty, I took some photos.

Surprised to see both fuel pumps were replaced, they have the parts dealer tag. Why would a car with this mileage need two new fuel pumps? Maybe it had pumps that had seized up from not being used. There are so many weired details. Now I don’t have to apologize for removing the fuel system, like the rear bumper. Everything just fine.

For example, when I was removing the CA pump next to the fuel tank, I found that two joints were broken. To prove that I didn’t break them, the smooth reflection on it is glue. Someone broke it and glued it.

All this did not prevent me from breaking another one just after I pulled it out. The early BOSCH pump joints are very fragile.

Disconnect the fuel lines, only a little stinky soy sauce comes out. I should have done this on the outdoor lift, but it is cold outside. I have to get the fuel out of the shop immediately, otherwise the smell will not go away tomorrow.

Only a little fuel indicated that the bottom of the tank was clogged. I’m eager to save this tank, not only because of its original date tag, but also it was one of the very little surface rust tank among those new era unpainted tanks. Since July 1993, the tanks no longer have the black rust-proof coating and they rust very easily.

The fuel tank was produced on 12.04.1994, one week earlier than the delivery date of the car.

The tank is pulled out, very heavy. This is the blood-colored fuel that was collected.

Here’s what the inside looked like. The bottom was so packed with sludge that feels like wet sand.

Not only the sludge, but also very rusty. I got some sodium hydroxide to dissolve the sludge. Then when the tank was filled, the solution came out of several holes. See, this is where the pungent smell in the car comes from. The tank is actually leaking, and the smell of turned gasoline fills the car, mixed with the musty smell and becomes disgusting. I have to declare the life of this tank over, with only 9966 km. Based on the fuel consumption of the S 320, if the original owner filled it up every time, it would have only been refueled 15 times. This could be the shortest life 140 fuel tank in the world.

This is absolutely frustrating, the best I can do now is to find a tank from the same period, the July 1993 edition (which lasted until November 1994), and replace it with the April 1994 production label. Until I can find such a tank, I’ll be busy with other things. I wasn’t too worried about the injectors being glued because I was too lazy to remove the fuel rail. The rail on the M104 is harder to remove than the M119 and M120, I don’t want to touch it until the injectors showed signs of possible problems. In the engine bay, I first wanted to check the combustion chamber and pistons, and replace the spark plugs.

Just looking through the oil cap, the cylinder head is very positive, and, lack of lubrication.

The air filter is the way to go after removing the spark plugs, so why not take a look. We touched so many places unnecessarily just to move the car for some photos.

The top intake has been removed. The 3 attractive original ignition coils are on display.

Such old-school BOSCH ignition coils are no longer avaiable nowadays, and are only possible on examples with such low mileage and that have not been well preserved.

These spark plug cables are super tight, haven’t been moved in a long time. The cables and ignition coils are original, but these BERU spark plugs are not. They are not so correct 14F-9DU, which belong to the engine of the M117 era.

Using an endoscope to look into the combustion chamber and inspected the valves, which looked fine. There is certainly no oil leak in the spark plug seat, thanks to the 30-year-old valve gasket.

The top of the piston also looks healthy, what a relief. My biggest concern was rust in the combustion chamber. You can tell by the top that this is a piston for the low compression 9.4:1 M104. Its output is slightly lower than the standard version.

Put everything back, including the new BOSCH spark plugs. I kept all the parts that were replaced, mainly to keep them as samples. One is to keep the original factory parts, of course the spark plugs are no longer in this list. The second is to use them as a reference for how much the parts will age, just by the environment rather than by use.

To avoid repetitive work: installed the intake and took photos, then came back to remove the intake and clean the visible dust —— I cleaned all the dirt. It’s a pity that except for a few photos of the dirty engine compartment taken when we first opened the treasure box, we no more have the opportunity to take photos of the original dusty engine compartment.

There is a leak on the top timing cover. I don’t bother removing everything front for this, just cleaned the sludge. Despite the mileage, there is still sludge in the engine bay, some of it is oil vapor mixed with dirt.

During the cleanup process I have found a few places that are worth flashing with NOS.

Cleaning soon spread throughout the engine bay. Most parts looked absolutely amazing, with only a few areas that need some touch. During the cleaning, I saw some wiring harness route that I had never learned before, which will help us correct some past restorations and provide a valuable reference for future ones.

Then, let’s drain the oil and see what it looks like. The dipstick had been shockingly clear before.

We got 8 liters in total, which is normal. I’m just curious how many times this car has been serviced in its lifetime, 20 years from 1994 to 2014, it has only traveled 9966 km, does the owner service it regularly? I added some inexpensive Mobile Super 2000 5W40, because I plan to flush it first. Parts can be obtained directly from our inventory, which is very convenient

At first I decided to send it to the dealer for a service A after doing the necessary checks, which is a ritual. However, we cannot assume that its last service was in 2014, it could even be 2004. So nothing should be neglected, I also drained the ATF. The oil pan gasket is first time removed just in case, it looks like it can be used again. The filter also looks fine, so I will keep them.

I didn’t drained the torque converter. To get the drain plug to the bottom, I have to crank the crankshaft. To crank the crankshaft, I have to remove the radiator shroud. To remove the radiator shroud, I have to move the radiator frame. Apparently the radiator frame has never been moved, and if I did, the paint would probably come off, so I’d rather do nothing.

Over the Spring Festival break, I searched through all of our donors to find a suitable fuel tank. The only healthy one is spotted from a 1995 S 500 from Arizona. The other tanks have rust and fuel congealing more or less, but not as bad as this one.

Since the fuel pump had to be disassembled for testing and there is some rust around it, I decided to rebuild the entire fuel pump assembly. This will slow our progress down since the hardware had to be sent to supplier for processing.

The first pump is connected directly to the fuel tank, so what will happen to it? Well, it vibrates but doesn’t turn when powered on, the gunk and rust inside stuck it. Eventually we have to disassemble it and remove the rust of rotor. The second pump was lucky, it was fine. The first pump took all the pain for it. Since the gasoline from the second pump to the gasoline filter is clean, I don’t worry about the injectors now.

Since the Spring Festival long break had just ended, the hardware re-galvanizing would take at least 2 weeks, so I went to do the rest. First up was changing the hydraulic fluid, differential fluid, and power steering fluid. This car was equipped with ASD limited slip differential, so there is a reservoir like the SLS equipped cars. I believe the car has only had its oil changed in the last 30 years so even though the fluids looked clear they were not kept.

There is a nest next to driver’s front shock tower and the wiring harness next to it has been chewed off. It looks like it was cut with pliers, is it a rodent? This is the wiring harness for the heater valve, I extended the 4 wires using wires from donors and connected them. Interestingly, I found that 2 of the wires had been rewrapped once, they had been chewed before.

At first I thought the messy tangling of the harness was repair history, but I discovered it was actually factory practice.

Speaking of wiring harnesses, this car must have had a factory wiring harness. Although the wiring harnesses on this 9966 km HFM 104.994 are near mint, but the insulation has disintegrated silently. This shows how little use it has had, such common problem has even been neglected.

Upper and lower wiring harnesses updated. The NOS Delphi wiring harness comes from 2002, tough enough.

The restored and assembled fuel pump assembly with the re-galvanized hardware in place

Finally it is time to install the fuel tank and of course the NOS cap. We have already cleaned the replacement tank with gasoline before installing it. I then replaced the original module in the trunk with an unlocked anti-theft module from a donor. The module, with a part number starting with 202, can be found on European cars from late 1993 to the last day of 1994, or North American cars from MY1994-MY1995. If an earlier anti-theft module is installed it will not work.

I inserted the key and turned it for the first time. At least the starter sounded. Then the second time, the third time. My mood changed from initial excitement to nervousness. It didn’t sound like the fuel was ignited. Was the fuel line blocked? On the 5th start, we heard the ignition sound, and I became excited again! Then 2 more times, it started! After perhaps twenty years, the camshaft and cylinder head, the piston and the cylinder block made a grinding sound! The oil pump also began to hum. After a few minutes, these places were gradually lubricated with new lubricants, and the jerky sounds disappeared.

Unknowingly, we have been working on this car for one month. There is still more to do. The deeper we check the car, the more things need to be done. Maybe we even have to remove the front and rear axles to make this car completely clean. This is a rare experience. In the past, I always had a fluke with low-mileage cars: low-mileage cars will not have our difficulties. In fact, low-mileage cars will face all the problems, just to a lesser extent. It is actually the same methodology to improve 9.5/10 and 5/10 parts to 10/10. Once you start, there will never be shortcuts.