| Today was the annual ACT German Car show. I always enjoy this show and this year was no different. The show is held at Queanbeyan Park, which is a great spot with plenty of shade. As with the last couple of years, I went down to Canberra for the weekend. Its a much better way to enjoy the show than getting up early and doing a day trip. The night before the ACT club normally organize a dinner. This year was a fun informal event, where we all had to guess some rare Mercedes parts, including a C107 glove box torch, fuse pliers, a wooden tool for pre-war radiator caps and more. The one we couldn’t work out was why some compact (W114/W115) lug wrenches have a tab that means you can’t use it on alloy wheels. And the same part number as lug wrenches that don’t have that tab. This year I took my 560SEC and entered it the ‘Silver’ road class. I figure it would be a good trial run for the road trip to Melbourne I am planning for November, especially after the recent transmission rebuild. The car went very well and I didn’t notice anything I wasn’t already aware of. The wheel wobble that I already knew about was quite annoying though. I didn’t win anything, but I didn’t expect to. My SEC is very much a driver, and would be lucky to even win Silver class. As I have covered before, I think the Silver class is great and I wish the NSW event would do something similar. This year one of the judges had to pull out, so I was asked to help. I’ve never judged before and it was a good experience to do it for the first time. I learned quite a lot and it also helped me really look carefully at the Gold class cars I was judging. My allocation was exterior judging. I think there were about 15 cars to judge. 
The thing that became apparent was the need to separate the cars to make sure the excellent cars are separated from the really nice ones and the really nice ones from the good ones. It meant that cars that looked quite nice on the surface in a particular category might get a score of 5 or 6, because there were a few grades of nicer cars in that category. If I ever do again, my experience this year will be very helpful to do it better. Having been involved in the judging, I was keen to see the results, and the overall winner and runner up were very well deserved. The winner was a 250SE coupe in amazing condition, and the runner up a 420SEL. While these two were the clear winners my personal favourite was a green 220Sb fintail. The owner had driven it up from Melbourne and it had an interesting and colour combination of a green exterior with a red interior. It worked really well. The paint wasn’t perfect, but it had a great patina to it. 
The ACT show is always so well organized. The event team had pre-painted lines on the grass for where all the cars should park. The gold class cars were arranged in a circle around a circular flower bed. Different models were parked together with signs explaining some details about the cars. There were less cars from NSW than normal, as MBCNSW had a different event today. Being focused on the judging, I didn’t spend as much time looking at the other marques as I usually would. The BMW and Porsche clubs are more modern focused, but the BMW display had some nice older models. The VW display is also quite varied, with plenty of beetles, Kombis and also more modern cars. The 2023 British car show was finally on in Sydney, the first since 2019. The 2020 and 2021 shows were lost to Covid and the 2022 show to wet fields. The 2023 show was still at the Kings School in Parramatta, but not on the same day as the school fete like normal. It felt like a summer day today, with temperatures of around 33C. Probably quite hot for many of the old British cars, and a few of the spectators as well. It was a lovely day though, without a cloud in the sky. 
I decided to display my E-Type again. In 2019, I didn’t display due to the large speed humps scraping the exhaust system in 2018. I was assured by the club that it was better now, and it was. I’m glad I had the car on display, as there was a nice line up of E-Types there in the JDCA section. The two best displays were from Jaguar and Triumph. Both organized their displays really well and had their models in groups of similar cars. For Jaguar, this was by the model registers. For Triumphs they did something similar. It was really quite impressive seeing the two rows of Stags for example. I wish they would do that at the German car show, as it looks so much better. It’s such a shame to have them in no particular order. 
For some reason the 2023 British Car show felt smaller than in previous years. They were only using two fields and they were not especially full. Perhaps because the school fete was not on, the day was less attractive to some? Or perhaps because after three missed shows, people were out of the habit. It can’t have been the weather. Regardless this is still probably the best car show in the Sydney calendar, and was well worth a look. I’ve known the automatic transmission in my 560SEC was weak for a few years now. It was exhibiting a lot of the symptoms of wear that these 722.3 transmissions do when they are wearing. When it was cold, there was a lot of resistance in reverse. It would also occasionally bang into a lower gear or shift erratically. Once it warmed up, it was a lot better, the feel of the transmission was not close to the 722.3 in my 560SEL or the one in my 300TE. While it didn’t leak normally, if I didn’t use the car for about a month, it would dump about a litre of ATF on the ground in protest. I didn’t really like driving it in reverse with that resistance. I used to make sure I parked the car so I didn’t need to reverse it when cold. This wasn’t a long term solution. I am planning to drive the car to Melbourne later this year, so I didn’t want the transmission to fail on me on the trip. In addition, was worried about damaging things further driving it this way. At this point I thought it was time to have the 722.3 transmission rebuilt. This was not a job I wanted to take on myself, so one of the mechanics I use arranged to take the car over to a specialist he uses for these transmissions. I got the car back earlier this week and its nice to have it shifting so nicely and to have reverse again. When having a 722.3 transmission rebuilt, its possible to just have it resealed, or actually go through the whole thing. As my issues were deeper than just leaks, I wanted it done properly. The labour to remove, tear down, re-assemble and re-install the transmission is the lions share of the job, and I didn’t want to have to do this any time soon. I also asked them to replace the rear main seal while the transmission was out. The rebuilder left the old parts for me to examine. I’m not especially knowledgeable about the inner workings of these transmissions, so I wasn’t familiar with all the parts that were replaced, but it was interesting to see the major ones. 
From what I understand, the picture above shows the friction discs. The set at the top is for the reverse clutch pack and the bottom ones are for the front and rear clutch packs (note there are two different sizes). As expected, the reverse friction discs are far more worn than the others. It’s good to see that while they were worn, they were not down to metal. 
The front (left) and rear (right) bands were also replaced as part of the rebuild. Like the friction discs, there is clearly wear, but they don’t seem badly damaged.  There were also other misc parts replaced, such as the vacuum modulator and various larger seals. I’m not sure what the springs and components in the bottom right are for.
 Looking at this last photo, it is pretty clear why these transmissions are always leaking. There are a huge number of o-rings. Not all of them are for externally sealing the transmission, but plenty are. There are also these large seals, which I think are for the valve body. The torque converter was sent away to be rebuilt, so I don’t have any parts to look at for it.
 I’ve only driven the car a short distance since having the 722.3 transmission rebuilt. So far, I’m quite happy. I’m going to drive the car to Canberra in a couple of weeks as a bit of a trial for the longer trip to Melbourne. I did a similar thing with my 450SLC before driving it to Adelaide, and the longer drive identified a number of things I was pleased to sort out.
My 300TE had its 722.3 transmission rebuilt not long before my purchase. Looking at the invoice, there were a lot of the same problems. Worn reverse clutch discs, and B1 band. These seem like the standard 722.3 issues. Editors Note: This is part three in a series by Nick Gruzevskis about living with a Ford BF MK2 Falcon Futura Wagon. Part 1 introduces the car and part 2 is a six month update. One of the things I’ve noticed about using an LPG equipped car as a daily driver, is how rare it is to see other LPG vehicles filling up at the bowser. I’ve already written about our dedicated e-gas Futura wagon, but let’s just replay some of the key facts. Ford Australia replaced the petrol tank with a 116 litre LPG tank for the wagon. Ford factory specs claimed the e-gas BF MK2 combined average was 15.1 L/100, while the petrol version was rated at 10.7 L/100. As I was planning a trip to Canberra, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to perform some real-life fuel economy testing. The first leg was from Vermont South (home) to Holbrook NSW. We managed to leave ~7:15am on a Friday morning and as usual confronted peak hour traffic. This included a major Victorian Government project, North East Link, connecting the Metropolitan Ring Road at Greensborough with the Eastern Freeway at Bulleen. Two hours after leaving, we arrived at Euroa to our favourite café, Mely and Me. This was followed by a quick stop at the op shop across the road. It was no surprise we walked out with a large picture, clothes and for me and a JBL iPod dock for $8. Who could resist? Arriving at Holbrook, first stop was to fill up and take the first measurement. We had completed 393.9km and put in 42.77 litres of LPG, this equates to 10.86L/100. At 75.9 cents per litre, this leg cost $32.46. After a brief lunch at J&B Gourmet Café, it was time for so more shopping. While Naomi decided to shop, I decided to check out some of the local buildings, including the Holbrook Holden, which is still trading, as a Service Centre while displaying a selection of Classic Holden models in their main window.  Ross Building, 1913.
 Holbrook Holden, established 1923. Run by four generations.
 Current building was known as the Criterion Hotel, built in 1895 and traded until 1965.
The next fill up was in Canberra on the day of departure back to Melbourne. This included Holbrook to Canberra and three days of urban city commute around Canberra. We had completed a total of 415.5km and put in 62.18 litres. This equates to 14.97L/100 and at 109.9 cents per litre, this leg cost $68.34. We drove all the way back from Canberra to home (without a fill up), stopping at Gundagai and Holbrook. You do need to try the neenish tarts at the Holbrook Bakery, they are delicious. The following day we filled up, we had completed 707.9km and put in 88.77 litres. This equates to 12.54L/100 at 105.9 cents per litre at the cost of $94. We were quite loaded up on the trip back, with the back seat down and the wagon almost fully loaded, with a ladder on the roof. 
To summarise, LPG fuel economy is what I expected. LPG in Victoria is a fair bit cheaper than most other states and rarely fluctuates. The average I pay in Victoria ranges between 75-79 cents per litre, while in Canberra it ranges between 105-115 cents. Author: Nick Gruzevskis is a contributor to classicjalopy.com, and the custodian of a great collection of classic and modern cars. Links to some his other articles can be found here. My 250SE has been suffering from poor running issues for almost two years now. It started not long after I got the car back from being repaired from the impact with the Kangaroo. Despite a lot of work to try and rectify these issues, they are still plaguing the car. The challenge is that these are intermittent problems, and so hard to diagnose. I started by checking the basics – the fuel filter, tank and so on. I also changed the plugs. This had no impact. My mechanic thought it was ignition related, so we’ve changed most of the wear components of the ignition system – points, cap, rotor, condenser, coil, suppressors and so on. When the car is running well, its running better than ever. But when it runs poorly, it stalls and stutters. Based on that, I’ve got the car booked in again for another look early October. I haven’t been driving the car much this year, as its just not very pleasant to drive when its running this way. This is a shame, as I normally really enjoy driving the W111. I took the car out again last week to see how things were going, and it ran quite poorly. It stalled a couple of times and felt like it wasn’t getting enough fuel. I’ll have to see how the visit to the mechanic in October impacts the car. The more I drive it, the more I think its fuel injection related. I had hoped to take it on a drive to Victoria I am doing in November. Even if it seems fully fixed in October, due to the intermittent nature of the problem, I will probably not take it on that trip. I’ll likely take the 560SEC instead. While I was there, I also removed the Becker Tribute radio. I had been having problems with this also. The radio would just lock up and stop responding to inputs. I took it out last year and even sent it away to Classic Auto Sound to be checked. They kindly looked at it, and on their bench could find no fault. I don’t know if its the car or the radio, but it stopped working for me earlier this year. I took the radio out to do my own testing and put in one of my Beckers in its place. Its a mid series Becker Europa II. Its a radio that I need to have serviced anyway, so if my car is eating radios its better to try this one. While the serial number tag has been lost, this radio would have most likely been manufactured between 1974 and 1976. It has the newer style of speaker connectors, the larger stereo light and other features that place it in this date range of radios. I don’t think this is the radio I will put in the car long term, but it looks great in there. Even if the car is still running poorly, I plan to display it at the all German show later this year. 
The Becker Europa II has a crack in the dial scale, but reproduction dial scales are available. The advantage of the Europa II is that it is a one piece unit, so very easy to fit. This era of Becker’s are DIN sized, but use their own mounting system of metal rods to hold it in place. Those rods are often missing with second hand backers, but not hard to find. The radio is installed in the dash without the knobs or the dial scale. Outside the two knob shafts are the slots for the rods which are easily inserted and tightened up. While I was there I also threw in a USB charging port. The modern charger is very ugly in the beautiful W111 dash. 
Today was the Monthly St Ives Auto Brunch cars and coffee event. The event is held in St Ives showground. Since I last attended, they have moved from being spread over some of the side roads and fields to the main showground. This is a huge improvement. The main showground is plenty big enough for all the cars that want to attend, without the parking chaos of previous events. Of course, the organizers can improve the event, but they can’t think for the attendees. Despite having an entire oval to park on, it was hilarious to see people trying to jam cars together in a corner of the oval so they were all blocked in, instead of creating rows with enough room to drive between them. I made sure I parked facing the access road so I could easily get out. I took my Citroen DS. Its always a good car to take to events like this, as its quite different. But today, it wasn’t. There were three other very nice DS on display. There was an original Henri Chapron convertible, plus two other very nice saloons. The saloons were both later models. As usual there was a great variety of cars at the show. Right at the front, there was a line up of Jaguar XKs – there was an XK120 roadster, a drophead and an XK140 roadster. There were was a contrast between the extremely valuable like a Ferrari F40 to the obscure and interesting. 
There were also some other really interesting cars, like a Blower Bentley, Toyota Crown, a Maserati Coupe, Ford GT 40 (I think a replica), and plenty more. I always really enjoy going to this show, and I like the new format using the oval. I normally find I run into a few people I know too. For August, the monthly MBNSW night drive was back up north. The route started in Windsor, taking the putty road up to Bull Ridge road, across to the Sackville Ferry, up to the top of Wisemans Ferry road, then to Dural McDonalds down the Old Northern Road. These are all really nice driving roads, with little traffic at night. While the night before had been a big downpour, the weather was great on the day of the drive. We had nine cars on the drive in the end. This is a really good number to keep the group together. We started at McDonalds Windsor. On the night we had four W124s (My 300TE, two 300Es and a 230E), three W126s (a 380SEC, 380SEL Limo and a 300SEL) , an R107 500SL and a Series 3 Jaguar XJ6. W124s and W126s are generally the mainstay of these drives. It was nice to have the XJ6 along as well. It was a nice example and fresh from a new pair of fuel tanks. We started out and were able to keep the group together fairly well getting out of Windsor. Most of this road was good driving roads with a few bends rated around 80km/h. Great for a night time cruise. The first waypoint was Sackville ferry, one of the five car ferries operating in Sydney. Our group of 9 was able to fit onto one ferry, even with a stretched limo. We’ve taken the Berowra ferry a few times on Night Drives. This was our first time on the Sackville Ferry.  After the ferry, the route took us on some of the sweeping corners of Sackville Ferry Road, then Wisemans Ferry road. The 300TE is very nimble on roads like these. On this drive, I had also been trying out some walkie talkies from Ali Express that I plan to use for a longer road trip later in the year. These proved invaluable, as not far down the Old Northern Road, one of the cars broke down.
Even though I was a few Km ahead, the walkie talkies allowed me to turn the first half of the convoy around and go back and see what was going on. The 300SEL had stopped dead. And it hadn’t chosen a very good place to do so. It was in a section just after a corner on the 90km/h section of the Old Northern Road. This section didn’t have a proper shoulder either. We positioned a few cars behind it with hazard lights on, but the big rigs roar through here at night, so it wasn’t an ideal place to be. 
The 300SEL would turn over, but the engine would not run. We quickly tried the obvious, such as to bypass the fuel pump relay, with no effect. Somebody had a multi-meter and there was power getting to the fuel pumps, but they didn’t seem to be priming. At that point, a good Samaritan in a ute stopped. He had a tow strap and offered to take the car to a safer place. We got everything hooked up, and he pulled the 300SEL about two kilometers down the road where there was a very wide shoulder. This was a much safer spot, especially as we expected the car would probably need to be left overnight. Luckily the owner of the 300SEL had come with the owner of the Limo, so a ride home was possible in the limo. 
This was our first real breakdown on one of the night drives. We’ve had a few cars pull out due to various issues, but this was the first time a car required a tow. And we expected it would be first time a car would need to be flat-bedded away. At this point with nothing much else we could do on the side of the Old Northern Road, the rest of the group went to the final destination at McDonalds. Due to the breakdown, it turned out to be quite a late night. When I got home at about 1:30AM, there was a message waiting for me from the driver of the limo. After about 30-40 minutes, the 300SEL had sprung into life, and was driven home without incident. Not only was this great news, but it preserved our record that no car has yet been flat-bedded away from one of the night drives. Despite the breakdown, it was an enjoyable night. 
The German Auto Show has grown into one of the larger Victorian car shows, showcasing the main German marques, but also some of the lesser-known brands that have ceased manufacturing, such as NSU and Borgward. The first show was held in 2016 at the Royal Institute for the Blind and continued at the same venue up to 2019. Initially the event was limited to pre 1990 vehicles, but this changed with a venue change in 2022 at Sandown Racecourse, where close to 500 vehicles attended and $10,500 was raised and donated to Beyond Blue. Last weekend the 2023 event was held at Calder Thunderdome. For those that don’t live in Melbourne, Bob Jane developed the tri-bank oval at a cost of $54 million and it was officially opened in 1987. Nascar, Auscar and Touring Car racing all used the circuit, but all stopped in 2001 and it effectively became abandoned.  August is one of the wettest months in Melbourne, with a 33% chance of rain. Given this fact the choice of venue was appropriate, as most cars could be parked on asphalt.
 We decided take Claudia, our 1979 450SE. It was going to be an early morning, as the Mercedes-Benz bump time was scheduled for 8:15am – 8:45am. After a short, misguided detour down Calder Park Drive (wonder how many other entrants did the same thing), we rolled in at 8:25am, queuing up with a number of other Mercedes-Benz attendees.
 Within 15 minutes we were waved through and weaved our way to the oval and then into the Mercedes-Benz display. The angle of the banked curve seems a lot higher when driving on it.
 The Mercedes-Benz display was quite well attended, approx. 60 cars were in attendance. Most were Club members, but it wasn’t mandatory to be a member to attend. There was a fantastic range of models on display, covering the full gambit, from preserved, modified, to recent models.
 At times the event didn’t seem quite full, but as it was so large attendees were very spaced out. I managed to bump into my cousin Ben, he had entered his 330i M-Sport wagon, a rarity in Australia as it wasn’t sold here, but he had just brought it back from the UK after living there. You always manage to bump into people you know, including David Morley, who told us he was in the process of writing another book.
 I always seem to hunt out for the unusual and rare, again this time the event didn’t disappoint.
 All the marque displays were fantastic, but being a previous BMW owner, I couldn’t help but notice the E34 M5 wagon and Z1.
 I’m not sure how many vehicles attended, but over $20,000 was raised and donated to Beyond Blue. The organising Clubs, BMW Drivers Club Melbourne and Volkswagen Club of Victoria put on a magnificent event, while every year managing to top the previous years event. Special mention to Jo Mawson (Vice-President BMW Drivers Club Melbourne) as I didn’t see her stop all day. Also, I must make mention of all the Club members that volunteered to help at bump-in and assist in parking up of vehicles.
Author: Nick Gruzevskis is a member of the Mercedes-Benz Club (Victoria) and the owner of this 1979 450SE, a 2005 CLK320 and a SLK230 The Shannons Eastern Creek car show is always one of the biggest events in the calendar for the Sydney car scene. I’ve been going for years, but this is only my second time displaying a car. This year I took my 1987 Mercedes 560SEC and brought my three children along with me. Last year I took my 250SE. When you display a car, you get to take it on a parade lap of the track. 
This year the show changed quite a lot after many years of using the same formula. I don’t think these changes were for the better. For some reason, they decided to discontinue using the display fields on the other side of the track. It made the show feel smaller. One of the main things that makes this show good is the size – so making it smaller doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I was surprised how few tickets the Mercedes-Benz club had this year. I don’t know if that is because the show restricted tickets or the club didn’t request them, but such a large part of the display was closed, my assumption is that show restricted them. Presumably because multiple display areas were now closed, all the clubs moved around for the first time in many years. For the most part, the larger clubs have not moved out of their regular spots for years. This year on the other hand they were all over the place. I think its actually good to move the locations around a bit, to give all the clubs the opportunity to have a ‘good’ spot. Having said that many of the club displays seemed quite small and underwhelming this year. This year the also heavily policed the parade lap. I can only assume this was a requirement from their insurance company. For a lot of lap we were driving at about 30-40km per hour, and even on the mains straight max speed was 80km/h. Even my children said we drove to the track faster than we drove around it. It wasn’t all bad though. This is still a very good even and well worth the time. The double decker bus rides around the track are a lot of fun for the family, and there is still a huge selection of interesting cars on display. Even better, you get to see them driving around the track, not just on display. 
The Mercedes club display was off at the second pit area on the other side of the tunnel. It was quite a good spot, although a bit out of the way. There would have been room for more cars than the twenty tickets we had. I was parked next to a very original W116 280SE. It was an early car, complete with the thin door cards, no rear speakers and front antenna. These early W116s are now very rare. One of my favourite cars that I see year after year, the 1930 Cadillac V16 I saw is for sale. I hope the new owner still brings the car to the show every year. High end cars like this are not often seen at these big shows with a lot of the general public. I’m still looking forward to going again next year. Owning more than a few classic cars can often be problematic, as minor maintenance jobs are often deferred. My 450SE (Claudia) had been on top of the hoist for a few months without being driven. I think she was prompting me to use her as a thick layer of dust had formed. When getting her off the hoist, I noticed I fair bit of auto transmission fluid had leaked out, and when measuring on the dip stick, it was reading under the low mark. Greg at “Gullwing Motors” quickly diagnosed the gearshift seal and kick down solenoid seals had failed and were promptly replaced. One of the minor maintenance jobs I had been delaying since I got the car was looking into why indicators didn’t self-cancel when turning left. I happened to ask Greg to look at it while the car was there. He promptly took the Mercedes emblem badge off steering wheel centre and communicated to me the mark inside wasn’t pointing down to the 6 o’clock position, but rather pointing to 4 o’clock, even though my steering wheel position looked correct when driving straight ahead. 
Greg asked me to see if a wheel alignment would fix it before he did anything else mechanically. A quick visit to Donnellan’s in Blackburn confirmed it couldn’t be fixed by adjusting tie-rods. It was at this moment I knew the steering box had been out at some time (prior to my ownership) and hadn’t been centred when being re-installed. The first task was to remove steering wheel and re-align it, in reference to the mark. This showed the steering box was at least one to two splines out, as the steering wheel was way to the left when driving straight ahead, which was disconcerting. 
Back at the mechanic, we had the task to align steering box. The first task is to lock the steering in place. We used a specific tool that didn’t allow the wheel to move. 
After detaching the steering shaft, you then remove the drain plug at the bottom of the steering box. Once removed you will see a block inside and when the steering is at centre, you will see an indentation that allows the box to get locked in place with a long-pointed end bolt (used in place of the drain plug). Once locked in place, you reassemble and then remove the bolt. When off the hoist, a test drive showed steering was ever so slightly off centre, favouring the right. Back at Donnellan’s again, Rocky greeted me, asking if I’d fixed the problem. I said sorry to be a pain and yes, I’d fixed 99% of the problem, but I just needed some final fettling via a wheel alignment. Now my steering wheel is dead centred when driving straight and my indicators self-cancel for the first time since owning the car. Author: Nick Gruzevskis is a member of the Mercedes-Benz Club (Victoria) and the owner of this 1979 450SE, a 2005 CLK320 and a SLK230 Editor’s note: On reading this article, it looks like my 1977 Mercedes 450SLC also has this problem. | |
