Roll-Top Storage Box

As some of you might remember, I bought my car sight unseen. The seller had cleverly placed the owners manual on top of the storage box, hiding the missing wooden roll-top cover. Quite a good trick I must admit, since it didn't look overly obvious that something was even being hidden.

I've wanted to get a replacement for a while now. The wooden roll-top is available new from the dealer for $600. But there are also many second hand complete boxes available for anything between $50 to $300 on Ebay.

I often find decent looking boxes but with the end piece/locking mechanism either broken or loose. This is because the slants become tight in the box and the constant opening and closing over stresses the backing material and glue, eventually tearing the end piece off.

After trawling Ebay for months, I finally managed to grab an almost perfect condition matching burl walnut (but burgundy covered) box. All I had to do was transfer the wooden roll-top part over to my palomino covered box.

Super easy job to do. Remove the box from the console by removing the two screws at the front (inside the box) and pull up and out from the front. Then on the box itself, remove a bunch of screws, including the locking mechanism. Then slide the roll-top cover out of the box through the front and installation is in reverse. Small thing, but does wonders to the interior of the 560SEL.
If anyone needs a burgundy covered roll-top box without the wooden part, I've got one spare now.


When I removed the box from my car to do the repair, I found a little Easter egg underneath it. I found 4 items.

1) An unused small pack of matches from a "Jupiter Crab Co." bar in West Palm Beach, Florida.
2) A petrol receipt from the "Airport Shell", Sarasota, Florida for 4.335 gallons of fuel paid by a Curtis/Ann Lindsay on the 24th of June 2009 at 22:06. What kind of person does a 4 gallon fuel stop in a 5.6L V8 Benz?
3) An ATM receipt for "Insufficient Funds" from SunTrust bank in Osprey, Florida on the 24th of June 2009 at 22:57.
4) Another ATM receipt from SunTrust bank, but this time in Nokomis. Flordia. Withdrawal of $40.00 leaving a balance of $12.51 on the 25th of June 2009 at 09:30. Someone was really broke!

Putting the addresses into Google Maps reveals what looks like a short trip from the Airport to an ATM on Wednesday night. Then another stop at an ATM the following morning a few miles further south. What a curious life.

Becker Radio Install - Day 1

Maybe its the Jag blood in me, but ever since I got my 560, I've wanted to turn it into a 10 point Concours car. One of the most important things to do first is to restore the car to original specification.

When I got my 560, in the place of the beautiful Becker unit, I found a nasty looking Sony radio that only played through the driver's side door speaker. This had to go! I quickly sourced a Becker 1480 and the Becker amps from a parts car including the wire harness and decided to install it slowly during the winter.

Today I started the project by removing the Sony deck. Remove the ash tray and push from behind, is what everyone said. Of course its never that simple. The Sony radio had a trim ring that needed to be removed first, which exposed the DIN mounting cage. You are now meant to insert some sort of Radio removal key into the slots and pull the radio out. Obviously I don't have any Sony radio removal keys. Therefore I used a butter knife and depressed the metal locking clips and slid the radio out.

Now onto the DIN cage. The bastard that installed it into the car had glued it into the console. Again, using my trusty knife, I managed to cut it out without damaging anything.

I tested the Becker radio on a bench using an old computer power supply and speaker. It worked beautifully. Fantastic FM reception. Even in the basement it picked up more channels than I even knew existed.

To my amazement the original wiring harness hadn't been completely gutted. And it didn't look like it had been modified except for a spliced ground connector. However, something was missing. According to the workshop manual, the rear 3-way speakers and the door speakers are driven by two independent Becker amplifiers. One for the left set and one for the right set. Now usually the dash or door speakers are driven directly by the radio. This setup is very similar to all the other 80s Mercs, and I know what the little speaker connectors that plug directly into the back of the radio look like, but I couldn't see any in my 560. The diagram in the manual makes it seem like all the speakers are driven by amps. Maybe Mercedes just left the speaker connectors on the back of the radio for other models?


To my horror I found the powered outputs from the old Sony deck had been connected directly into the line input for the Becker amps! Ahh! This could explain why I can't hear anything from the other speakers - the original amps have all probably been burnt out. But then, why was the Sony radio playing through the driver's door speaker?

I removed the old radio and installed the Becker unit. Powered up, entered the code, and it looked like it was working. But I couldn't hear anything from anywhere.









I guess I'll need to pull the rear bench seats and investigate further. Not a very nice job to do with this car as its equipped with heating and reclining rear bench seats.

Touch up paint

Odometer Gears

My odometer stopped working a few weeks ago. After reading up online I learned that the odometer gears either strip out or crack.

I ordered in the proper trim removal hooks ($14/pair) and decided I'll pull the instrument cluster today.









Made a note of all the connectors as I pulled them out. One of the plugs (the big black 7 pin plug in the center) just came apart when I pulled on it. I took a high-res photo of it so I can remember the pin layout.

















After a bit of disassembly and inspection it was immediately clear what had happened. The teeth on the E2 gear had stripped.

And the broken teeth can actually be seen stuck in the E1 drive gear.


I had a look on odometergears.com and they say that the original gears are amber? Mine are black. Has someone been in here already? If these black gears are supposedly the newer and updated gears, why did they break? The E2 gear looks like its covered in what was once some kind of grease. Its soft and rubbery unlike the other gears. The E2 gear is 48 x 12 and the E3 gear is 48 x 16.

I'll call Mercedes and see how much they want for one of these gears. Its probably a good time to convert to metric units as well.

Powdery Mercedes Coolant

I have a little coolant leak from the thermo-vacuum switches - probably just need new crush washers. But as you can see from the photos, the coolant comes out clean, but then as it dries, it gradually turns white, and then becomes powdery when completely dry. I use the proper Mercedes branded coolant on this car.









What's going on here?

Genuine Floor Mats

There seems to be some interest regarding my floor mats.

I got these guys from the dealer last year for $120. The part number is: B66226071. I simply asked the guy at the parts counter for mats, he asked for my VIN, and I got these a few days later.

The top is as you see it, a carpet like material, the bottom is a thin foam like material that looks like it'll tear apart easily. The silver "Mercedes-Benz" logo part is made of metal.

They're much too nice to use all year round, but since I only drive the 560SEL in the summer, they're just fine.

First long-distance trip after rebuild

Drove Ottawa -> Toronto -> Ottawa to drop off my sister at School.


Distance = 830km (500 miles)
Avg. Speed = 134km/h (80mph)
Fuel economy = 110litres (29 us.gallons) = 7.5km/litre (17.5mpg)

Distance and Speed taken from the GPS and fuel usage taken from the gas pump readings. Air fuel mixture was set using an exhaust gas analyser and compression check after the rebuild showed 180psi +/- 5psi on all cylinders.

Kept the economy gauge in the black 80% of the time. Car was fully loaded on the way there. And empty on the way back. A/C was on all the time.

I bet I could get 20+mpg if I hypermile'd it.

The SLS really shines when there is some weight in the back. It felt firm, responsive and very comfortable. But the front suspension was waaay too soft. Need to stiffen things up front.

The 560SEL is in a league of its own when it comes to chewing up highway miles. After 8hours of driving, I felt like I could do it all over again.

I came across this saying in a Craigslist advertisement (of all places!),

"Those in the know, drive Mercedes. Those who know Mercedes, drive w126."

Couldn't agree more.