Hello from JMcCoy. Lititz, PA, USA

[JMcCoy]

Greetings ladies and gents. I am Josiah. I hail from Lititz, Pennsylvania, USA (where the Amish live...). This week I will be obtaining a pristine 1977 Mercedes Benz 240D sedan. Heck of a deal at only $600! You may be asking yourselves, "What is this kid thinking?!", but the glory of it is there is nothing wrong with it minus one minor thing... it needs a block heater.

The story behind this deal is as follows. The guy is scheduled to leave this upcoming week for the Army. His parents don't want the car taking up space at their home. If he was unable to sell it before he left, they were going to take it to the junk yard and cut it up. :'( So in order get rid of it he has it listed at $600. Here is where it get interesting: I have under $100 to my name right now. Over the course of the past 12 hours I have managed to come up with a $300 loan from my brother and sold a couple old car parts for right around $100. Almost there. Only thing left now is to sign up for insurance...hopefully through my folks as a 4th driver.

 

[JMcCoy]

These details come directly from the original ad...

pros:
exterior is in magnificent condition, very little to no rust only surface is 3 spots.
paint is in great condition
all parts are original
only 210,000 miles witch for a 77 is very low
interior is a 8/10 the only things thats wrong with the interior is there is no carpet and some sun cracks on the dash
new starter
new solenoid
new battery
new headlights
its inspected till june next year!!


the cons
the car does not wanna cold start, not sure what is causing this but if your good with cars this is gonna be a steal for you

 

[JMcCoy]

Saved for pictures...

 

[mini_cooper4]

Welcome in the forum! Take the car and we'll help you solve the cold start problem
I'm rebuilding classics too

 

[JMcCoy]

Dropping the first payment of $300 later this evening as well as taking care of the title. By Friday the Benz should be at its new home! By the sound of it, I feel as though it just needs a block heater installed. If so the case, I may be able to snatch the [basically] brand new unit of my brother's ratty '85 300.

 

[JMcCoy]

So finally got to look at the car in person. A couple more issues came up. Could use some help of anything that may fix these ...minus the obvious.

- Easy fix: Needs a new serpentine belt
- Wipers & Dash lights don't work. (Fuses were replaced)

 

[Giannis]

As for the lights, I guess that the light bulbs must have died after all these years. You have to find a way to replace them

 

[JMcCoy]

As for the lights, I guess that the light bulbs must have died after all these years. You have to find a way to replace them

I actually just came across a link for this issue. It's actually quite common I guess in the older mb's. The rheostat (controls dimming of the lights) gets corroded after awhile. You have to pull out the dash cluster and remove the rheostat. Disassemble it and clean the contacts. Then you're good to go again!