recently acquired 450SEL 6.9

[volvonoob]

So, out of some strange fluke, it appears that a non-running 450SEL 6.9 has come my way. I don't normally do any work on or have any experience with gasoline mercedes. This will be interesting. I have some k-jet experience.
Here is the skinny on the car as far as I can tell:
Bought germany in 1974 right before they showed up in showrooms and brought to cali.
Original black paint, looks pretty much immaculate, though the driver door has had the door handle removed.
Some very minor rust and bubbling under the doors, but none around the bumpers, arches or jack points that I can tell.
Has been sitting in a barn for 5-7 years or so not running.
160K miles or so...kind of high, but probably a lot of highway cali miles.

I have only ever seen one other 6.9 in person that happened to be running. It appears to have k-jet like most of these cars. Is the fuel distributor the same as a 4.5? I'm guessing not? Can it be cleaned out with reasonable success since it has been sitting?
Anyway, the interior is complete. Air cleaner is missing (hopefully a 380 or 450 can donate one since I have access to a W126 380 parts car and W116 450 parts car). Alternator is tired. It is mostly intact from what I know of the ever more common 4.5L 126 and later 116 cars, but a 6.9 is a new thing to me. Sunroof headliner could use some help.

Here are my questions:
Most generally, what am I getting into with this? What are the common fault points?
What parts can be taken ideally from dead/rusty 3.8 or 4.5 V8s or other 116 or any mercedes parts car to help save this one?
How hard would it be to obtain some european headlamps to get rid of the ugly quad round lamps?
Where might I obtain a good shop manual for a 116 or ideally a 6.9 116 (ha!...yeah right).
I am looking at this as a sort of early summer project to get it up and running and do a partial restoration.
I am busy until about june, but will probably have some time to tinker, acquire parts and diagnose before then. I have other things to do and some more vintage volvos to finish sandblasting and undercoating before I even really do anything with this car.
Cheers,

[cth350]

A 6.9 is an awesome machine. Parts and expertise are available. Your prior knowledge of CIS will be most helpful. Anything other than the motor and transmission is available from another 116 parts car, including euro headlights and if needed euro bumpers. As for an air cleaner, I believe it's unique to the 6.9.

Euro headlights for this car should set you back about 100$. They are not as expensive as the other model's lights due to lower demand (not too many 116s still on the road compared to W123's).

A shop manual is a phone call away, call 1-800-for-merc and ask for the W116 chassis disk. Unfortunately, there is no 6.9 engine info, but it has everything else. It wouldn't hurt to also ask for the appropriate technical data book (TDM) for the car. It will have all the tuning specs missing from the CD and it will have lots of other details as well. The CD is about 30$. The TDM will be about the same.

In the same phone call, ask for a copy of your car's data card. It will list the options from the car and will give you a better idea of the dates. The first 6.9s came off the line in late 1975.

Your starting point with working on the car is to drain the gas and oil and replace them with fresh fluids. The CIS system will likely be gummed up but that can be cleaned with patience and the right tools. The most important of which is a CIS pressure gauge. Aside from the fuel distributor, you'll need to make sure the WUR is working correctly. There are several threads here and at www.m-100.cc about the wonderfully positive effects a good working WUR has on the engine performance. Most people think the thing is just a "warmup regulator" (thus the initials). However, it's the "warmup/Enrichment compensator", which means when you touch the gas, it's job is to make sure the right amount of fuel is present so that your 6.9 can be the powerful rocket that it was born to be.

While you've got time to do a bit of research, there are the archives here, and also two other useful websites to know....

www.mbca.org The mercedes benz club. Join and get a 10% discount on parts from the dealer and several other suppliers.

www.m-100.cc The international M100 club. A group dedicated to vehicles with the M100 motor. Joining us gets you the same 10% discounts. It also gets you to the group's archives.

...You don't need to join either group to enjoy the website benefits. Just like this site, the people posting have plenty of experience and are willing to share. This site is sponsored by fastlane. They'd like you to consider them when buying stuff. The other groups are clubs with magazine news letters and other somewhat fun club activities. I happen to belong to both.

Enjoy.

-CTH

[alabbasi]

Well don't be shy, let's see some pictures!

[Dee8go]

Si, senor. Pleeze put some peechurs up for us to see.

[volvonoob]

ok, pics to follow when I tool up the freeway to where it is being stored. I should start a photo journal I suppose in its current somewhat sad state. Nothing is missing, it is just very dusty/musty from sitting around.

Thanks for the tips. I am familiar with a bad WUR on a volvo 240 turbo. BTDT. Gotten one cleaned, though sometimes I just had to replace it, which was fairly expensive, though the cars ran great with a new clean one. I'll try to check some part numbers from the 450 parts car and see if any of the k-jet stuff from it can be kept around for this one. Anyone know for sure if a 4.5 could donate k-jet parts to the 6.9? Small bummer on the air cleaner if one has to get it new. Oh well. Hydraulic lifters if they work are nice. I plan to dishwash the dry sump tank and inspect all hoses. Radiator is fairly new, but I'll be busy once I really start to put this car back together.

I thankfully know someone who can get wholesale mercedes parts like the ever expensive hydropheumatic suspension components, which it appears this one has.
I am guessing it is probably going to need those parts, suspension bushings and the major engine seals done. Not sure if I want to pull the engine out early on, but if I have to to reseal it and examine it, so be it.

[volvonoob]

Sorry for the double post. My CIS experience is mostly with VWs and volvo turbos, but some mercedes like a 450SL for example. The volvo turbo uses the larger airflow plate and can use mercedes V8 k-jet parts, it is really quite a similar beast. I haven't done anything with my CIS (volvo guys call it K-jet, but VW/benz guys seem to call it CIS) gauges in years though...have to check that I still have all that junk, since I currently only own one CIS car and my family/friends currently have none.
Do the mercedes euro cars use oxygen sensors with their k-jet in these years? My 81 volvo 242GLT (canada/no emissions) has none.
The sun is shining after a lot of rain here in the lower mainland/Fraser valley. I might tool up to the freeway to the patch where the car is sitting and take some pics.
I'm starting to pick up more W116 terminology and I gather you all consider a 116 "vintage?" So, when searching for information, I should mostly search in this (sub) forum?
I will acquire a shop manual soon as knowledge and reading a scrap here or there and gathering little parts before the project begins is something I can do now to ease the pain later.
Anyway, take care
-J

[250 Coupe]

You should check out www.w116.org

Lots of good folks and it seems like most have a 6.9 or two.

Michael

[alabbasi]

K-Jet should be common to the 6.9 and other cars so you should be able to interchange parts. A photo album is a good idea. If you need a place to host the pictures go to http://www.w108.org/gallery . I've got pictures of my 6.9 there , some of which are during the restoration progress. Wodnek also has pictures of the a 6.9 that he is restoring which is in truly a rusty state.

He bought it of some toe rag in Atlanta and I'm sure has regretted it since.

I just had the timing chain done on my 6.9 and it drives like a bullet. Very nice.

[volvonoob]

Well, the saga continues. The car is a 1974 as far as I can tell. Stranger still, it also doesn't have k-jet at all, but looks to have d-jet EFI. It does have a very large engine that doesn't quite resemble a 4.5 from my memory, but I didn't see stampings on it in the usual places to identify it. Trunk lid and paint is original back there from what I prodded, so that fits, but the car seems to be a bit of a mystery. The badges on the trunk lid read 450SEL on the driver side and just 6.9 on the passenger side. Euro car correct?

Fair enough, I thought it might be kind of a freak. So I carefully checked all the vin numbers I could find in the door jams, firewall and a-pillar. They all match, including the ones stamped into the chassis, so I'm inclined to think the car really is a 74 and hasn't been messed with much. The paint is sun faded in such a way that I also doubt anything was ever repainted. Whatever the heck it is, the build date on the door jam is 10-73.

The vin reads something like:
116.033-12 01557
I searched some, but anyone who has a good link care to identify what all of that means?
My camera is kind of messed up, but I'll go through and see if any pics turned out vaguely decent.

[250 Coupe]

it's the 1557th 450SEL made. It's Left hand drive and has a gasoline engine.

It's not a 6.9. That would be a 116.036.

The 450SELs had d-jet until 1976 when they switched to k-jet.

Michael

[volvonoob]

Cool. Well, that should make getting parts for it easier, but now the story fits. Would have been neat were it a 6.9, but now everything fits in my mind.
How the heck it got a 6.9 badge and some 6.9 interior bits is another mystery to unfold. It has been even longer since I've ever worked on anything that is d-jet. K-jet I sort of know where to start. A D-jet car is going to be interesting.

I'll edit the thread title if I can to reflect what it really is. Given where this car came from, I might be able to track down the 6.9 parts car that likely donated a trunk lid and a few other things with a little more investigation.

[diametricalbenz]

The rebadging is common. I acquired a very nice 6.9 US bumper from a purported "6.9" which was clearly a 450SEL when I saw the rest of it at a dismantler yard.

[deanyel]

Whatever it is you should not put penny 1 into it. Whatever money you put into will be gone forever. This is probably true even if it was rust-free - certainly true with rust. Do whatever it takes to get rid of it.

[alabbasi]

The comments below pretty much count for every car , unless your building a Muscle car or buying a Ferrari with the intention of never driving it. If you like to work on cars and enjoy restoring, it's better then p*ssing your money away at the local pub.

If you can get into it for little money and have a nice driver at the end of it, you will probably put a couple of thousands on it, but your not making payments and it's not going to depreciate like a new car either.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

All the best

Al

Originally Posted by deanyel

Whatever it is you should not put penny 1 into it. Whatever money you put into will be gone forever. This is probably true even if it was rust-free - certainly true with rust. Do whatever it takes to get rid of it.

[volvonoob]

Well gents, yeah I'm a little disappointed, but really this is no big deal. I'm fairly familiar with an old car like this for the most part. I didn't pick it up solely hinging on it being a 6.9, if it had been that would have been a pleasant surprise in its rarity and all that, but in some ways also kind of a punishment to drive it around for a while. I enjoy fixing older euro cars.

What would mostly turn me off is if the d-jet or something were terminally un-fixable to the point that it would be much better to just part it out.

I know from an investment standpoint I'd be silly to try to flip this car really. But to drive it for a while and then sell it when I want something different (like ideally a decent 123 or 124 diesel wagon), is that too much to ask? I mean, the body is really rather unusually nice. I don't really have any significant time or money into it as of now and it can sit a while, so no heavy consequences or decisions need to be made right away. I quite like the 116 over the 126. The long wheel base part is kind of a bummer, just because it a bit on the big side for my taste.

Such said, I gather no one really would ever want to buy even a pretty clean 116? Are the older gas 116 cars sort of the 380SEL of the W116 (aka logical parts car for a rough 300SD, 450 or 560)?