[MBZ] Are all hood pads made equal?

[Euan Kennedy via Mercedes]

Greetings from the Southern Colonies

It’s time to replace the hood pad on my W123 300TD wagon. The original has done 
233K miles. Not bad I suppose, but it has now sagged over the air-filter 
canister. The prospect of a fire in the engine-bay is uninviting.

Can you experts give me a steer on suitable replacements? I imagine OEM pads 
are best but at a price (especially Down Here, well removed from northern 
hemisphere suppliers). 

What about third-party alternatives? And what about suppliers you trust?

Cheers

Euan

1985 W123 300TD 5-spd manual
223K miles





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[MBZ] Hey... We’re all upside down!

[Euan Kennedy via Mercedes]

LOL, no, our tyres are just as good as yours. 

This north is up and south is down thing is just a mental construct. It’s kinda 
handy to get our puny human brains organised around viewing the planet that 
way. Otherwise we’re all clinging to a round rock floating in a universe which 
doesn’t have ups and downs, Norths or Souths. 

Scary, eh. Let’s just be grateful that the slingshot effects of rotation are 
still out-muscled by the sucking effects of gravity. For the moment. 

And anyway, who said north was up?

Sent from my iPhone

> On 16/05/2020, at 4:58 PM, Buggered Benzmail  
> wrote:
> 
> I’ve always wondered how cars can hang on upside down on the bottom of the 
> planet. Like do you have really good tires there. I know you drive on the 
> wrong side of the road maybe that has something to do with it, you can hang 
> on better. 
> 
> --FlaT Earther

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Re: [MBZ] Sticking my neck out - an Antipodean perspective

[Euan Kennedy via Mercedes]

Hi all, from the Southern Colonies 

I have always treated this mailing list as yours. Thus I have no right to 
object to its content. And if I do, then I can simply suspend my subscription. 

As it turns out, I have often done that since signing up more than two decades 
ago. 

My chief interest is in learning more from you technically-competent guys about 
my 300TD. Occasionally I can offer something worthwhile in return. But most of 
the list's traffic is irrelevant to my situation, including almost all of the 
OT postings. When finding diamonds in the dross becomes too tedious, I take 
time out. I’m deleting 98% of emails right now, so I’ll soon be signing off for 
a while, I think.

I don’t intend that to be a reflection on you guys. I thank you sincerely for 
the generosity of your advice in answer to my technical questions. I appreciate 
that very much indeed.

Were I to offer a suggestion, then how about creating sublists: one for 
technical stuff, one for cars and prices, and one for general commentary on the 
American Way of Life? Is that feasible?

Euan

1985 W123 300TD 5-spd manual
223K miles

Christchurch, NZ





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[MBZ] Air filters - OEM or others?

[Euan Kennedy via Mercedes]

Thanks for the assurance and advice about my oily air filter canister.

A new OEM filter costs $NZ85.00 at this end of the world. Yikes!

Do I stay with the stock filter or fit a quality filter from another maker? 
Does it make any difference to performance and fuel efficiency? 

Which brands do you recommend? Anything else to look out for?

Thanks

Euan

W123 1985 300TD 5-spd manual
223K miles
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[MBZ] Oily film in the air filter pan

[Euan Kennedy via Mercedes]

Gentlemen, and others

Hello again from the Antipodes. It’s been a while. 

I’m on a mission to get my 300TD engine clattering like new again. 

Tell me, should I expect to find a film of oil on the floor of my air filter 
canister? It’s not a pond, only a film. And it’s confined to the inner 
circumference of the filter. Is this normal?

While in the canister, can an OEM air filter be washed to remove debris and 
dust? My filter has done only 25,000 miles but it looks a bit cruddy. 

Cheers

Euan

W123 1985 300TD 5-spd manual
223K miles





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[MBZ] Leaking front shocks

[Euan Kennedy via Mercedes]

Greetings from the Antipodes

It’s nice to be rejoining the community. Great to see familiar names here.

One of my 300TD’s front shocks is weeping fluid. This is an automatic fail in 
our Warrant of Fitness system. So, after 222K miles, I’m picking that the 
original Bilsteins are due for replacement. I’m kinda pleased about that - I’ve 
felt for a while that the front end has been lacking its original stiffness and 
stability.

Do you veterans stick with Bilsteins or are there perfectly good alternatives 
these days?

Cheers

Euan

1985 300TD 5-spd manual
222K km



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[MBZ] Email Clients-Outlook vs Thunderbird

[Euan Kennedy via Mercedes]

> Looks as though Mozilla are planning to discontinue support for Thunderbird 
> and focus solely on Firefox, which was always their core business anyway. 
> 
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/01/mozilla_to_kick_thunderbird_out/ 
> 
> 
> Euan
> Christchurch
> NZ
> 
> 1985 300TD 5-spd manual
> 222K miles

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[MBZ] OT: Slide scanning - Mould on the originals Take 2

[Euan Kennedy via Mercedes]

OK, let's try this a third time. AVAST has been messing with my e-mails.

I located a long neglected NIKON LS-2000 a while ago but, like you, was 
confounded by the SCSI interface. After a bit of rummaging, I found to 
my astonishment that I had acquired somewhere along the line in my 
legacy Mac squirreling an exceedingly rare (and now /very /costly) SCSI 
converter plug that overcame the need for a SCSI board on my old 
PowerMac. The old Macs have gone to the big recycling boneyard but I 
still have that converter.


Since then however I've bought a Nikon CoolScan 4000ED which is now 
waiting for me to upgrade from the PC darkside to decent recent iMac.


My early scanning experiments with the LS-2000 revealed a problem I 
haven't found a fix for yet. A few of my thousands of colour slides are 
blighted with mould on the emulsions. I've consulted Dr Google and it 
seems that the best fix may be to freeze the slides to kill the mould. 
Theoretically, freezing should make it easy to simply brush the dead 
mould off, without taking emulsion with it.


I'd really appreciate some advice on this. Have you found a satisfactory 
solution to the problem of mouldy slides and negatives?



Euan
Christchurch NZ

1985 300TD 5-speed manual
221K miles


On 28/11/2015 1:49 a.m., Peter Frederick wrote:
Vuescan works well for Eastman (or other pre-programmed) films, but if 
there isn't a profile it can take quite a while to get good color.  
Needless to say, I have all sorts of strange films that are not on the 
list.


The thing I like the best is the ability to control contrast, it's 
fairly easy to restore faded slides and negatives, and rescue 
under-development.


Peter





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Re: [MBZ] OT: 34mm Negative Scanner - Mould on the originals

[Euan Kennedy via Mercedes]

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Re: [MBZ] OT: 34mm Negative Scanner - Digital ICE Rocks

[Euan Kennedy via Mercedes]

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[MBZ] Binding brakes

[Euan Kennedy via Mercedes]

A question from the Colonies

My 300 TD hasn't had a run for quite a while. Almost six months. Last 
week, she and I ventured out for a sunny Sunday drive.


I found that the front disk brakes were binding. The faster I went of 
course the more they bound. I limped home at 50 kph which seemed to be 
the speed at which air flow over the rotors cancelled friction heat.


I'm assuming that the problem lies not in the calipers but elsewhere. 
Any ideas?


Cheers

Euan
Christchurch, NZ

1985 W123 300TD
5-spd manual
220K miles

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