With 7 total vehicles in our possession, it seemed rather crazy to add an 8th, but I’ve been known (on more than a few occasions) to go a bit overboard when I get into something. Vintage cars were no exception. 3 classic Volvo 240’s, and now 2 classic Benz W123’s.
We have not given this car a name, but once again I found myself traveling to North Chesterfield, VA to look at a beautiful blue 1983 Benz Turbo Diesel. I test drove the car with the current owner, and the car seemed to drive okay. It obviously needed some attention as the current owner stated he was given the car by his now deceased next door neighbor, and he used it on occasional weekends to take the kids for ice cream, but just didn’t use it enough to warrant maintaining it, or providing insurance on it, so he felt like it was time to let it go.
We worked out the deal, and I had the vehicle transported to Autohaus of Yorktown, Virginia where they began several months of work on the vehicle. The first order of business was to fix the issue with not being able to turn the car off with the key. One would have to raise the hood and use the “STOP” feature on the engine to turn it off. That wasn’t going to work for me, so we addressed that issue. Many features on the W123’s involve vacuum, and turning the engine off with the key is tied into the car’s vacuum system. So… a vacuum pump was in order. This would likely help with other issues on the car (such as the door locks – another vacuum-centered feature).
