My "Saharagelber" 300TD

There we are again, walking in the supermarket, picking up 120L PVO, and put it in the back of the car. Actually, it is quite a waste, all these bottles, but they only have the 1 liter bottles.

It’s a funny thing to do this, sometimes people ask if I put it in my car, and what car that may be. Lots of people saw it on the television or read it in the paper these days, lots of people are getting sick of the diesel prices (which are 1.05 Euro’s per liter @ the moment) and are now mixing PVO in their tanks with diesel. In some supermarkets the PVO is only 0,59 Euro’s per liter, so that’s quite a difference. Only if they have the old diesel engines, without high compression direct injection and the common rails. We have some good forums about this topic here: http://www.fmso.de/

I need to read more about the whole topic myself, but I didn’t have the time yet, but there is lots of info to be found over there. It is also a hot topic at our dutch W123 Club.

Great, I found a very good new Webasto on Ebay Germany, the Thermo Top P. They are a lot cheaper over there than in The Netherlands, and I just bought it.

A water heater is a independent apparatus, which has it’s own engine and is tapping fuel from the tank, it warms up the coolant so you can start with a warm engine. This will extend the life of your engine by far, because it’s the saddest thing you can do to your engine, starting it when it’s icy cold (yeah yeah, drive without oil is even more sad). I’d like the idea that she had a warm start since she was bought at the Mercedes dealer, and I want to keep it that way. Oh yeah, it has a cute own exhaust with a little damper too.

You can read more about it here at the Webasto website.

I bought the one with the cool Telestart T100 HTM, which can be used to program it remotely, or turn it on directly.

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Excerpt from their site:ÂÂ

Telestart T100 HTM –
the parking heater controller that thinks with you

All right, this week went perfectly okay with the Saharagelber. She drove me gently from home to work and back this week. I passed the 60000km on the clock. I checked the oil but its still perfect, nothing lost.

I tried to program the Webasto Waterheater but with no succes, it seems it works only directly but the program clock does not do its thing, so it seems. I decided this week that I want to change the original unit for a new one, with a remote control, also from Webasto. Also, I have to look where the car can get a complete anti-corrosion treatment.

Furthermore, the automatic gearbox seems to shift not perfectly, it declutches too long, so the rpm gets too high, and then the next gear sets in. This needs to be readjusted, this is often the case when a car drive only very short tracks, nothing serious. In the mean time a shift with my food, at the time the gearbox declutches, I take my foot from the pedal, so it can shift more generously.

Finally, I need to replace the dashboard light, can’t see a thing when it’s dark.

Today was the first day to work, I work at a project at the moment in Delft, which is 96km (58miles) from home.

That means 192 kilometers (116miles) each day. For the moment I decided to drive with this marvellous car, and I think it will be inside for the winter, because I want to do some preparations first.

Again, this car runs really great, it still smells like new, and it drives really really great. I’m feeling so lucky that I came across this car, and it will never leave the family.  I love the yellow color, and the sound of this indestructable diesel is so great. You can really hear it is soundly constructed. I am looking forward to all the miles I’ll drive with this car.

The chrome shines, the paint is new, the interior is stunning, and the engine just began. Such a beauty and so much quality, when you drive a W123, you’ll feel it. Rock solid and built to last, that’s what they are.

At work she really shines at the parking place, between all the boring lease cars which are the dominating the roads here in the Netherlands. See where these electronic plastic monsters are in about 25 years from now.

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I’ve filled her up with vegetable oil yesterday. Vegetable oil from the supermarket that is. The problem is with these old diesel that they pollute the air more than newer diesel cars, and the point of using vegetable oil is useful in another way too: Saving the mineral oil reserves, we will run out of oil if we keep using oil as if there’s enough. So if this car will run on vegetable oil, it’s the least I can do. Sure, there is not enough space on the planet to let all the diesel cars run on this fuel, but if the trucks and a percentage of the cars will, this is already a good thing. It’s CO2 neutral and the CO output is roughly half. Also the soot output is way less, about 50%.

This blog will be also interesting, if you the reader likes this whole idea, you can find information here about what things I run accros by experimenting with this. And if there are any consequences in the long term, what about the cold, what about the types of PVO, what about parts wich may malfunction and so on and so forth.

I believe in this, and I will do more research to the subject. I think the W123 is perfectly suitable for this, and I want to do this very thoughtful and I am thinking in the long term, because I want the car to last forever and it will drive lots of miles.

Today I’ve taken the TD for some pictures, and I wanted to see if it runs okay on Vegetable oil.

Yes, I already drive on pure vegetable oil (PVO) for some time in the USA 300TD, and it drives very good. No problems at all, It’s still warm enough and I’ve put it in the new one today.ÂÂ

It was a very nice day to take some pictures right before sunset. I’ve taken so many, you can better have a look at my gallery at the dutch W123 Club for this nice fotoshooting from today.

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At last, there we are again. Our fun trip turned into a bit of a hell. But, we are back, and I’ve GOT THE CAR! And wow! What a pleasure to drive in. So solid, so nice, so decent, so, so, ah, like I said; I’m in love again.

The last real Mercedes Benz, cars that are built to last, cars which have a nice design, are pure quality, nice chrome instead of plastics. It’s all 100 percent a Mercedes Benz. And such a nice state the car is in,  I’m so happy now!

However, like I said, the trip was an adventure in itself. We left, and the journey out was all okay. We only arrived a bit late, so we were there in the evening. I wrote the whole adventure already in dutch, and I need to translate it to english some time. You can find the dutch article here, and even if you can’t read dutch, the pics are reason enough to check it out I hope.

Thus, I am not writing it down again, but in short, it took us 24 hours to drive back to The Netherlands. Harrie’s car broke it’s belt, we stood still for 5 hours, had to sleep in our cars, were in a fight with replacement belts, oh well, we’re finally at home.

Anyways, the Benz is great. It’s marvellous how this car is cared for all these years. The car was owned by the WDR all the time and used for film editing, and drove only small tracks, and that’s why it is equipped with a waterheater, so they always had a warm car (and a warm engine). They sold it via an auction and the seller which bought the car at the auction was selling it again because he thought the car was too slow. He wanted to use this car for towing his other classics to oldtimer shows.ÂÂ

This saharagelber drives like new, compared to my other car a bit too new, it’s just a bit more stiff, and the interior is a bit creaky, like a new car.

It passed the 59000km on the way back, that’s approximately 35750 miles. I told her she now may drive a lot more, the coming decades, at last she may begin her real life nowÂÂ

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Yes, today is *THE* day. I took a day off so that we can pick up the car. Harrie deferred an appointment for today at Klasse Klassiek and so we can leave in the morning and head to Nurnberg. I arranged the money in cash at the bank and I need to pick it up first, then I drive with my actual 300TD to Utrecht to Harrie’s. I got the address and we will arrive early in the evening, if the traffic is not too heavy. I then drive the car back to Holland and Harrie drives back in his own car.

It’s a 650km drive so this will be a long day, hopefully we will be back late into the night.

 If all is well, I’m sitting here tonight…

“To Buy” I guess, although I am not sure if I am going to use it already, my other 300TD is a very good car too.

It’s an USA version, with all the bells and whistles, which makes the car cool, but less practical, all the electrical/pneumatical features are extra’s which can break too. In the long term, the less extra’s the better.

But I can postpone the use of this ex-WDR car, but I think I need to have it, you don’t see this kind of 300TD’s anymore these days, they are all used very well and usually worn out. Most of them had to work hard all their life, so now most 300TD’s are in bad shape or show off they were heavily used. Also, I’ve never seen one with such a low mileage.

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So, I called my partner and friend from Klasse Klassiek (our Mercedes Classics company) and asked him if we can go to Nurnburg (Germany, and yes, that Nurnburg from the racing track) tomorrow. I told him how special this car was for me and how desperately I wanted to have it. And that we need to be very quick with this one, because they already called from other places in Europe too. I definitely want to be the first. This will be the car of my life!

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All right, I already have received a reply this morning,

Great, the car is still there. I just called the seller and asked for more pictures. I’ve received them already today.

It’s a brand new W123 300TD, that’s for sure, wow, this is unbelievable, drove so little all these years!

I’ve seen that before, but not with the 3L 5 cylinder stationwagon.

The car drove only these 58800 kilometers because it was a car used at the WDR (West Deutsche Rundfunk) as a movie editing car. That’s why the dashboard has some tools fitted on it, which need to be removed, but then there are some holes left. The seller offered me new panels with which I can replace the ones with the holes in it.

“She” looks awfully beautiful to me, will she be mine? Wow, this car looks soooh good. I think I’m in love. With these new parts I can restore the car its originality.

The engine still has its original preservative on it, this means it was never steamcleaned. There is also a original Webasto built in (Standheizung/waterheating). The car was well cared for, that’s a good sign.

There is a Bosch alarm too, but the remote control is not there anymore, something I should look after myself.

The car has still its original conservation stuff on the engine.I take a walk with the dogs, think about what I should do. When I listen to how I feel, I think I already decided…

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This looks good. I was looking for one for so long, and now it seems I found THE REAL one! ÂÂ

Tonight I was browsing the net and was looking at a big german car classifieds website. Someone did send me a link to a W123 for sale, and after that I was just searching to see some other W123′s for sale, always fun.

Then I saw it, and was stunned. I shivered, “What the.. ?!”, I couldn’t believe my eyes! I already have a 300TD Mercedes, but this one…. A nearly brand new ‘saharagelber’ 300TD, with only 58800km at the clock. How is that possible? What is the history of this car?

I have a technical great 300TD, which I already love now, but from the outside it doesn’t look very good anymore, and there are some electronical and pneumatic issues as well. I like the idea of starting with a brand new W123 300TD and then drive it for the rest of my life…

 I’ll start a blog for this project. This whole thing feels good.

Here is a picture as in the advertisement.

I’ll send this seller an email, see what happens.

>Herr Jurgen Stroo interessiert sich fuer Ihr Fahrzeug mit der Bezeichnung:
>Mercedes-Benz 300 TD nur 58800 km !!
>
>http://www.mobile.de/cgi-bin/da.pl?id=11111111184420784&sprache=1
>
>Der Interessent/die Interessentin bittet um eMail-Antwort unter blurg – at – jurgenstroo.com
>

Another pic..

Let’s go to bed now..

 I probably can’t sleep..

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