I'm leaving on a 1200 mile trip in the morning in my wagon which is now at Sportline spring height. $1800 sounds like a great buy and that blue is always sharp.

 

nice color combo and a good price. well done.

 

i love the interior color. hard to find.

 

Nicely done, my friend! Don't be put back by the next repair, which might (or might not) be costly. Stuff wears out after 17 years. If you really want to feel like you're in a new car, replace the sway bar bushings and tie rod ends. I recently did as my "stay one step ahead of the sheriff" maintenance program and all I can say is, wow.

P.S. I had larger wheels on mine, then switched back to OEM size because anything larger didn't fit in the spare tire well. Damn thing is precisely engineered to 195/65-15. Even with 205s I couldn't close it properly.

 

Looks like a killer deal for a sweet color combo with lots of the "gotcha" repairs, and all at a very fair price. Score one for you.

 

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I am glad my intuition was right about the color combo. David Hendy is going to look over the car for me soon and give me the prognosis. I will cross my fingers till I know exactly what sort of maintenance is due to be caught up on.

 

Traitor!

Congrats Cory, beautiful color combo. Looking forward to seeing it in person.

 

nice find! love these wagons.:thumbsup:

 

Awful, just awful. Colour, model, leather - everything is just awful. Seeing I'm just a nice guy I'll take it off your hands for....oh that's right, you're on the other side of the world.

I do love the colour combo. That leather looks sensational. I thought I did very well picking up a one owner '90 TE daily driver for $640 but you have excelled with this one. Very, very nice.

 

Midnight blue and saddle interior a scarce but pretty combo!

 

Nice car! If you are interested, I am parting out mine, and the steering wheel leather is pretty good shape on mine, with only some minor crazing on the very top, and otherwise perfect. I also have the rear muffler which is almost new as well, has roughly 10k miles on the muffler.

If you are interested in the steering wheel or muffler, or any other you may need send me a message.

Thanks and best of luck w the new car!!!

 

I managed to meet up with David Hendy yesterday afternoon. He was super helpful and made several suggestions about the car. He gave the car a thorough once over. I am obviously going to be picking up a number of parts from him.

The main wiring harness had been replaced. I do need to work on the positive harness. He was saying it is an easy DIY fix. The actuator is original as well. I believe he has a rebuilt one that I will get. He recommended sending off my old one to be rebuilt and then selling it to defer some costs.

I need front shock mounts, a valve cover gasket, and a number of fluid changes/flushes. Hopefully, the valve cover gasket replacement solves most of the oil leaking issues. I need to change the SLS hydrallic fluid and filter, flush the brake fluid, and flush the antifreeze all with OEM fluids. He is getting me a good condition steering wheel. The alignment is way off and that will need to be addressed soon.

It was very interesting to see the areas in the rear near the antenna and spare tire well that can rust. The spare tire well side had already been treated. I need to work on the treating the other side, but it didn't look bad. The same goes for in the engine compartment near the air filter area. He explained that this is another potential rust area.

All in all, he thought the car was a good buy and very clean. It appears the only big $ gotcha that I have to be concerned with is the head gasket.

 

I scored a nice set of wheels today. I picked up a set of 16x7 et37 wheels off a 2001 CLK vert. The tires don't have much life in them, but for what I paid it is fine.

 

Small update on the car.

I got the original throttle actuator replaced with a rebuilt one over the weekend. A spare positive wiring harness is going to be brought to someone to have the wires replaced.

I clay barred the entire car and waxed it. The paint is very good with the exception of the clear coat chips on the hood. I picked up shifter bushings that will get them installed with a replacement neutral safety switch soon.

I picked up some hydraulic fluid for the SLS. While at the dealer, I got some mercedes coolant. I need to flush the radiator and replace the coolant. The brake fluid is going to get replaced and flushed as well. The car currently has Mobil 1 in it. There are some big oil leaks so I will be switching over to 20/50 dino oil. The valve cover gasket will get replaced at the oil change, too. I need to order inner and outer tie rods and will likely order sway bar bushings at the same time.

I am trying to buy some time on the head gasket. It is definitely on the way out. I am hoping the coolant flush and change to thicker dino oil along with the valve cover gasket will slow things down. It has been about 100k since it was last done. I got the service history at the dealer and confirmed this.

There is a chance that I may swap in a 3.6 engine if I can make it through the summer as is. There is a engine for sale not too far from me for $1200.

Lots of great info on the forum here. David Hendy has been super helpful and a great source of parts.

Cheers- Cory

 

Big update on the car.

The head gasket was in very poor condition. The oil had mixed with the coolant very badly. I talked to my guru David Hendy about the problem. He mentioned that a C36 engine would drop right in and would make an interesting combo. As luck would have it, I found a wrecked C36 about an hour away and bought the engine. I assisted David on the swap over the long 4th weekend. I had a good credit at Gutenparts in NJ so I ordered a number of steering parts to install while the engine was out.

Here is the list of things that were repaired in no particular order aside from the engine: SLS hose leak, radiator swapped, has new alternator, swapped coolant reservoir, POR 15'd the typical spots that rust in engine bay and rear side windows, tie rods, steering damper, center link, front shock mounts, inner sway bar bushings, neutral safety switch, shifter bushings, rear flex disk, both motor mounts, trans mount, newer lower engine harness, good rubber hoses all over the place, down pipes without pre-cat and no cats.

The C36 engine looked to have a new water pump. It also had an interesting looking head gasket. The gasket looked to have a strip of metal in the middle of it. David has never seen a gasket look like that. The valve cover had a bunch of sealant around it and will be replaced soon.

The engine swap took the better part of four days. I learned a ton along the way from David. He was great company and a wealth of information about the W124. We got everything situated and then realized the C36 oil pan had a crack. We did start the car and it ran without incident or codes. I am putting in some royal purple oil hoping it will quiet down the engine a bit. We were surprised at how clackety the C36 engine was. It seems this is a common issue with these particular engines.

The new oil pan is on and I just have to pick up some exhaust clamps as we cobbled together a short term solution for the exhaust. I also am going to need an alignment immediately, too.

I sent out a 3.2 valve cover to get powder coated. It will work better for the 3.2 air intake set up as the 3.6 crossover tube barely fits with the original air box.

I will report my impressions of the car after I get things more settled this weekend.

 

Pics please

Any update pics?

 

Long live the wagon. They all leak oil at some point. Seems like you picked this one cheap enough to off set some gasket work. Peanut butter gut is sweet

 

Nice lemonade you made there~!

 

Did u consider turbo or supercharge options rather then full swap.

 

I had no interest in turbo or supercharging. I needed to get an engine in there without a head gasket problem. I got lucky that there was a local 3.6 motor for sale at a reasonable price.

 

Small update with some pictures.

The car is up and running. The royal purple 15w40 oil worked great. The difference was pretty startling actually. I got the valve cover back from the powder coater yesterday. We are going to install it along with the new gasket over the weekend. It should be interesting to get the cam cover off and see what everything looks like in there.

The only big issue I am having is with the transmission. I need to get another kick down switch as mine is no longer working. The vacuum control and/or bowden cable is out of adjustment. I am getting flair at part throttle and things just generally aren't working as they should. I have just been driving the car very gently in the meantime. I need to figure out a place here in Fairfield County that I can bring the car to to check this out.

I got 24 mpg on a trip yesterday. I put 200+ miles on the car in two days and was pleased with this number. Here's some pics. I will post some more when the valve cover is done.

 

I salute your ambition. But it seems like you need to be a mechanice to stay on top of it all or have money to burn. How was fitting the extra side of exhaust under there, where did u connect it or dual out the back. What is flare? Keep chasing gremlins down-when your donw she will be nice and custom where it counts. Onward and upward

 

Small update on the car.

I didn't end up installing the powder coated valve cover because they coated the rubber breather grommets. They were a pain to get out and would have to be ordered at the dealer.

The transmission issue is fixed! The car runs and drives fantastic. I can finally enjoy the extra 60 hp and lbs of torque. The car is really eager compared to the original 3.2 engine. It pulls really hard to redline. I can't explain how relieved and happy I am that the car drives like it should- E36 wagon. The problem ended up being that we installed the throttle linkage backwards. A local transmission shop fixed this and reset the vacuum and bowden cable. I had the jet black brake fluid changed as well.

I found a set of CLK forged wheels for the car last week. The only bad news to report is that I have a bad passenger rear wheel bearing. It is humming pretty good and needs to get fixed soon.

I am also going to need to get some H&R wagon lowering springs and decent front shocks. With the extra power on tap, I need to firm things up. There is too much float right now in the corners. If anyone has any springs/shocks for sale shoot me a PM.

Here is the car as it sits now:

 

Putting lowering springs on a car with SLS isn't as easy as you might think.

Do a search for what's involved, but it requires a bad of tuning with the self leveling valve to keep the ride height in check & level without risking damaging the hydraulic ramps.

 

Hey Cory!

This is Denis from FCP. Nice thread/project.

I emailed you back and you're invited to stop by and see/ride in my C36.