[mayurhuria]

"The thing with the power is, its never enough"

A while after entering the car scene, I realised I have the above stated syndrome.

We autoheads always fantasy exotics be it thumping v8 or screeching v10,v12, but their is always a giant wall that keeps us away from achieving these dreams is lack of Vitamin M.
Well time passes and some dreams do not fade away. These are the dreams that keeps on pushing you to achieve more.

My daily drive is 2010 1.2 Hyundai i10. And from past 8 years, I have got love and hate affair with it. During this time, I realised the car offers good enough for its type, but is far far from what I wanted. Mind you, the thoughts of turbocharging, engine swap etc all crossed my mind. But unlike, its Japanese counterparts(first gen swift petrol), these Korean have least potential and so even less aftermarket support. All I could fiddle with suspension and brakes (which is worst in the Hyundai of that time, but improved a lot in the current Hyundai lineup), but failed over and over again
Fast forward to later half of 2018, I decided that it is high time and I needed a fun project car.


Choice of vehicle

1). Hot Hatch:-
Options were buying a used Suzuki swift and turbocharging it. Or buying a preowned POLO GT or Abarth Punto.
The Idea was dropped mainly because I did not want another hatchback.

2). Skoda Laura 1.8 tsi
Well, this the most common recipe, if you are looking for affordable(subjective to reliability) and easy availability.
This was dropped mainly because I could not find a clean car.

3). BMW E60 530d
This option was ticking almost all the boxes, but a clean car was totally out of budget. BUT the search continues.

Deciding on W124 e300d

As earlier I stated, in the later half of 2018, I was fully pumped to get the car as soon as I could and also was exploring all the other options as well. So one fine day, a friend who is currently in the UK, called me after a year or so and we were discussing random stuff and he then told me his tuner friend built an Audi a4 3.0TDI
that is pushing around 500bhp and 1000nm on stock internals. This drew my attention and I asked him to further investigate.

By this time, the ~300bhp options started to look minute to me. And I decided, I want more.
So I looked upon and clean A4 3.0tdi were very rare and a6 were literally out of budget. Plus the cost on top of achieving those figures were even amazing, so dropped the plan.

Now I was even more frustrated and confused. And was exploring my options as to even is it possible to get even near power figures from e60 530d? Spending nights on forums, etc I came to know about the mighty OM606 ENGINE that Mercedes offered from 1993-2001.
This is very famous very reliable and easy to extract powerhouse. Also known as diesel 2jz because of the power it makes on stock internals.

So I searched more to find the Mercedes cars that came with Om606 engine. And then enters Mercedes-Benz W124 e300d in my search list.

Well to be honest, I knew what a w124 was but never knew the legacy it carried. For me, it was a car that people buy who wants to own a Mercedes but could not afford one.

Finding the car
So I started hunting for the car. And as every other, the first thing I searched is on OLX.
Now, call it my stars. W124 e300d is rare in India, unlike the Telco made ones. But on the very first search on OLX, I found a w124 e300d in my city (Chandigarh) itself.
It was a 1995 black color car, 1.25 lakh kms, second owner, doctor owned and from the pics it looked really great, but the price was on higher side but I still fixed time with the owner to see the car.
There was another e300d in Kerala. Although the preference was to get the car locally, but I still dropped him a message.

Now, the next day, I called up my friend to accompany me in having a look at the first car from my city.
We went to the owner house, he was still at the clinic, but the car was parked outside his house and his father came out. He showed us the car around and told us it is his own daily drive and knew his car inside out. I inspected the car, looked underbody and other area for rust and it was a clean one. My heartbeat started to rise and me getting feeling of it being the end of my years search but I waved myself not to be excited, until I get it in my hands.
The owner(his son), has also reached by the time. He briefed me about the history of the car, that the car was bought from his relative and was restored at a famous Mercedes restoration shop. The papers were clean. Basically, it ticked all the boxes. Now, the only thing left was the pricing. The asked price was a lot, but knowing its rarity, I could understand the demand. So after giving a lot of thoughts, I gave the owners, my offer and asked them to think about it and let me know.

I came home and started googling more about the w124, its history. Checked the team-bhp threads and woah. All my doubts about the w124 were gone and I then realised the importance of w124 in building Mercedes status and how prestigious it is to own one.

Now it became even more difficult for me to wait. I wanted that particular e300d at any cost. So, I waited impatiently for his call.
After two days of waiting, he finally called and then we both negotiated the price. After a half hour of negotiation, we finalised the price and decided next day noon to deal. I then called my family and discussed the deal with them and they said its my call and we decided to go for it.

So I went to his house, did the needful and finally on 30 November 2018, comes home a w124 e300d

[mayurhuria]

"Initial Driving Experience"

Well to be honest, I did not test drive e300d before buying
I just sat in the passenger seat and let the owner drive and that was enough for me (call me over excited here)

Now a little briefing about the car

Its 1995 w124 e300d
Engine:- 3000cc Inline 6 cylinder diesel
Transmission:- 4 speed auto (722.4)
Power:- 136bhp
Torque:- 210nm
RWD
comes with 195/65R15 tyres

Anyhow, so I took the car in my hands after doing the needful. First impression, WOW!
The car felt so direct (call it my excitement). And straight away after taking the car on the road, there was a bad patch of road and it just glided through those. So comfort wise, the car performed extremely well, especially for a car that is approximately 25 years old.

Got the tankful done from a nearby petrol pump and now I was onto my way back. Now my workplace, was around 17kms from the previous owner house with some empty stretches. So I utilised this opportunity and thought to stretch its legs on the way back. Now, in stock form the specs of the car are very ordinary (136bhp and 210nm), in fact quite underpowered for the size of the car ( 1440kg of kerb weight). So it took a while to accelerate. Acceleration wise, it felt slowly initially, but once it picks up speed it has a lot of room and kept going (later I got to know that the real culprit here is the higher rear ratio of 2.65 to keep the rpm down on highway cruising etc due to lack of 5th gear)

The accelerator pedal was hard and took a while in getting as to how to operate it correctly. The gearbox felt sluggish and kickdown had a mind of its own. Anyhow, all these issues seemed minor to me and nothing that would affect anything.

On the way, I noticed as to how many eyebrows a w124 raises. From kids to oldies, everyone looked at the car. Making me even happier with my choice.
Met my family, friends and everyone like the car a lot and were very happy. Reached the office, parked the car and called it a day.

[mayurhuria]

Making it mechanically perfect

I have a mindset to always get a used car serviced immediately after buying for the peace of mind, no matter if the previous owner has got it serviced recently. Plus, I also enjoy it hehe.

So after two days I took the car to the workshop. And we thought of inspecting the common areas



Upon inspecting

we thought of changing the coolant as well with a complete flush.

Now, I have a fetish for synthetic oil (my i10 runs on helix ultra and has clocked over 2.2lacs kms without even touching the engine internals even once) and I always love to see the improvement it makes to engine after upgrading from mineral oil. The previous owner ran on mineral oil and it was a great opportunity for me to witness the upgrade.
But there is a big thing with these old engines is without knowing the condition of the internals, it is likely to cause some issues.
The main reason is, there are high chances and it also happened in some cases, though not all, that these old engines with high miles have the years deposits around the seals. These deposits are what keeps these old worn out seals from leaking. Now the synthetic oil has better cleaning properties which would remove those deposits and cause seal to leak. So I was not ready to take the risk, but at the same time I was not interested in settling for mineral oil.

So I took the safe bet and went for Mobil1 10w-40 semi synthetic oil. Now the car did not come with its owner manual, so I was not sure of the engine oil capacity. Online I could not find exact capacity, but it said anywhere between 7 to 8 litres of engine oil. So we filled with 7 litres first and then let it settle, cranked the car, let it idle for a while, turned off the car. Then we checked the dipstick and oil level was showing at perfect mark. So we preferred not to add more and drive the car a day and check the next morning.

Another thing was availability of filters, etc. Well, honestly, I had little hope with the availability of these parts for w124 e300d, being less in no. and Chandigarh being a small city. But to my surprise, everything was available.





Now the servicing was done and the car started to drive a little better, but the gearbox issues was still persisting. Jerking during upshifts, reverse wont work on incline, etc So after researching for a while, I decided to change the transmission filter, transmission oil. So we went ahead and did the needful. But the issues still remain. During the same time, we changed the engine mounts and transmission mounts as well. So a month passed and I kept on searching for the issue. We tweaked with Bowden cable, Vacuum Modulator as well, but no improvement. Sadly, I was not a team-bhpian back then, so I was totally at the sake of internet gurus and also at that time w124 was a new territory for me. So after searching and searching, we found the issue to be a faulty vacuum modulator and reverse seal replacement.

Fixing Rear Bumper
The rear bumper of this car was made of fibreglass and was broken at various places, although very small pieces and could be fixed easily. Also, the front bumper was original raw grey color finish. So I thought of getting rear fixed and get both painted in black color to match the overall look of the car.







Now by this time another month passed and the reason I bought e300d in the first place required me to upgrade the gearbox anyways, so I decided to live with it for a while and then upgrade it in a go.

[mayurhuria]

"Stancing the car"

So around 4 months passed and life caught me. Sadly, I could not drive the car much. Another pain was, being a Detailer, when I inspected the paint of the car, I noticed the restoration work done in the paint department was below average. There were paint bubbles on the front left fender, it was peeling at some parts, completely dull. I checked the paint thickness and it came out pretty thin. Still, I thought of giving it a pass with Fg400 on Microfiber pad on Rupes lhr 15mk2 and immediately I realised its better to vinyl wrap it then detail it so left it for later on.

Now, W124 is one the car that when stance right looks completely different creature. In those 4 months, I did nothing but R&D on this, going through countless pictures on the internet.
The dilemma was to go 17" or 18". Mind said to go for 17" and heart says 18". Like every new W124 owner, my first choice was Monoblock wheels, but seeing how common these are (no offense here), I decided to look for other options. Finally heart won over mind and decided on 18", keeping in consideration the road condition of my city and usage.
So I was exploring different options through many local dealers as well PAN India. Many different brands were considered, but many choices fell out of budget.
Finally, I got hold of these through a dealer in Bangalore.

Wheels:- Racing Hart Concepts
Diameter:- 18"
Width:- 8J
ET/offset:- 32
CB:- 73.1 (came with 66.6 hub centric rings)













Test fitting on the car





Clears the strut easily



As stated above, sadly I was not able to detail the paint properly, but with the new wheels, I wanted to have this pleasure. So, I decided to give the wheels, a dedicated wheel ceramic coating from my arsenal. And I had this perfect coating for it Gtechnique C5 Wheel Armour.
So the wheels were prepped first (being new they required basic cleaning with eraser) and then each wheel got 2 coats and were left to be dried overnight.





C5 offers up to 2 years of protection against brake dust and does not require any harsh wheel cleaner to clean the wheels, just the regular car shampoo is enough.

CHOICE OF TYRES

Now that I got alloy wheels, it was time to decide on tyres. I was confirmed on tyre sizes i.e 225/40R18. But the issue is this size is very rare and comes under the grey import category. Guess the only option available in regular stuff was under Michelin lineup, but it costed a bomb (at least to me). So another week passed in search of tyres and then one fine day I was talking to a fellow autohead from my city and I discussed the same with him. He then suggested me to look for Accelera 651 SPORTS drag radials as they would cost less and will be right for my use. In fact, he has found a local shop that was arranging the same for their group buy (they planned it to use on their tsi, abarth etc) and the shop owner found the size I was looking for. So I paid 10% advance payment and the next day, evening the tyres were delivered.





Got these fitted on alloys and the test fitted on car

LOWERING THE CAR

To stance this car right, you got to lower it. Unlike the TELCO made, the Euro spec W124 already sits lower. But still higher, as per my liking. Now, the w124 suspension design on front also has independent spring and strut setup, which makes no true Coilover options for it. Some people run e36 front coilovers on the front along with lowering springs and ford ranger front struts on rear, but those are strictly very lowering the car such that it scrapes all the time. I want to lower it, but still should have a proper working in fact sporty suspension setup. The regular cocktail recipe usually followed by w124 owners is lowering springs (Eibach, H&R etc.) with performance struts (Bilstein, Koni etc). So I also decided to go the same route but with some exceptions. So I ordered H&R sports lowering springs (these offers even more drop than regular H&R lowering Springs) but for the struts I got a custom made set with stiffer damping (got it to my liking after a few trials)













Changing suspension springs on the rear is easy, but the front is tough without Mercedes dedicated spring compressor, for a single person.

FENDER SPACERS

W124, at stock height on the front can run 235mm tyres and on e500 and wide body models 255mm. But once you drop it the fat tyres become an issue due to scrapping in front. Now, if your only criteria is stance, then people tend to go narrow tyres like 205 or 215mm, but I did not want to compromise on performance part and wanted to run 225mm upfront.
AMG in 90, came with a solution for similar issue and the solution was called AMG FENDER SPACER


Image Courtesy:- www.google.com

As the name says, these are spacer which would space out fender to accommodate the wider wheels on lowered car, without messing drastically with Bodyline of the car. Sadly, these things are not readily available in India. But the best part is we have availability of material to make these at cheap. So basically you take a polyurethane block of required diameter and cut required pieces and thickness out of it and drill a hole in the center. Now, AMG spacers are 15mm thickness, but the one I made were 20mm for extra room.
Installation is easy and 3 pieces each side (if you want to add to the side skirts as well)



Have to adjust bumper mounting point a little


And one goes in the side skirt (this is a mockup picture, proper bolts were used to mount it)

FINAL OUTCOME

After a few trials with spring pad of different thickness, I was able to stance it as per my liking









After almost a month of arrival of alloys and various trials and errors, the end result was worth it. There was no scrapping on full lock, bad roads, bumps at all. And the stance to die for


Note:- As of today, the wheel setup is no more on the car. The tyres were sold and the alloys are up for sale in team-bhp classifieds section. A new completely different wheel setup is in progress and will be updated soon.

Also, various modifications/upgrades related to lights, exhaust etc are coming up in the next posts and after that all the posts will focus on the turbocharging the car and reaching 500bhp mark. So stay tuned.

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Initial Ownership Section. Thanks for sharing!

Stunning W124! Because of what's under the hood, its probably one of the best examples in the country (the Indian E250D was terribly slow). Your car is going to our homepage today . Suggestion = don't modify it for any more power, it has almost 140 BHP which is enough for a youngtimer. Would suggest, spend that money instead on making it mechanically perfect. A 25-year old car has a lot of mechanical / electronic / rubber parts that need to be set right to make it "tight".

Wishing you many happy years with this legendary automobile.

[extreme_torque]

I skip a beat everytime I see a well maintained W124. I like how subtly gangsta yours is due to those wheels. Waiting for further posts on the work you do on your car.

[2000rpm]

Woahhhh. Thats the only expression I have after seeing the car.

I absolutely love the sees the passion as well as patience we BHPians have with our cars.

Thats would have been significant time and effort!

[nihasbabu]

Threads related to W 124 are always interesting.
Great acquisition man. I am of the same opinion as GTO. Dont modify it for more power. Instead use that money to rectify other mechanical and electrical issues caused due to its age.

[veedub89]

Dude! That car looks sick!

As GTO suggested, I would also advice a bit of caution on trying to extract a lot of power from the engine. I think spending the same amount of effort and money to make the car mechanically perfect would be well worth it and almost certainly guarantee that you can keep this car with you for another decade.

Get some interior mods to make the car more liveable and you will never want to look at another car.

Best of luck!

P.S.- wouldn't mind checking the car out in person! I am from Chandi too.

[headbanger]

Let me pick my jaws from the floor.

Absolutely ravishing looks. The pic in front of fuel pump showing the lassy length of the car is so seductive. Made my day!!!

[starter]

Beuatiful car there bud!
My humble request would be to keep her stock.
Bring her back to factory condition mechanically and visually.

[Turbohead]

Your car looks totally gangsta! The choice of wheels is awesome! Like everyone else , I would also suggest you to skip the upgrade for power and get the car in perfect condition.

Besides did any gangster request you to help them with kidnapping someone?

[Frankenstein]

For jerky gear shifts and slow pickup, its the vacuum line leak that is responsible and none of the so called Delhi , Punjab mechanic will fix it. I drove a stock 300d in Delhi. it was pretty quick and didnt feel sluggish. Which turbo are you going for, which pump does this have? That gearbox has to go 1st.

[Shanky_1002]

Dude that's one cult gangsta ride you've got! An absolute gem of a car, as everyone has mentioned do keep the power mods on hold and bring up the mechanicals and interiors to perfect stock condition. Look forward to your updates, Happy mile munching!

[gururajrv]

Oh man looks gangster with those new wheels and lowered stance!

Imagine you wear dark shades, dark clothing and I’m sure people will respect you as it looks badass gangster with your car arriving in style

Your car looks beautiful! Happy mile munching times there