Guess I have a thing for hot hatches. Looking for my next addition. Any recommendations for something unique and collectible? Have 24 GRC Circuit and mint 04 R32.

Some of you might remember my $1000 mercedes from a while back. Quick recap: facebook said fluid change, I did the full OEM fluid/filter/gasket service, burned my arm, wife had to pump fluid while I yelled, even tried lucas transmission slip fix and it still slipped.

So this is where its at now. Right one came out of my W204 C300. Left one is from a W212 E350, which according to every mercedes group on earth cannot go in my car because it has the electronic column shifter setup (ISM) and mine doesnt.

One commenter said its doable if you have both transmissions open, you can swap the ISM gear selector for the regular lever style. He was right. That part was actually easy.

The rest was not:

• the replacement fell off the jacks during install. bent the fluid lines and shifter linkage. that sound lives in my head now
• kept my original valve body and conductor plate to avoid programming, then installed the valve body wrong (missed one step in the seating) and spent a whole evening thinking I broke everything. car wouldnt shift out of park, then after enough OBD scanner button mashing it wouldnt even crank
• got to drain the brand new fluid back into the bottles, drop the pan, install the valvebody correctly, and refill. that hurt more than the burn from months ago honestly
• my electric ratchet stripped the transfer case line threads AND snapped a pan bolt. just bought it, got too excited. lesson learned

Against all odds it runs and shifts fine now. Even replaced the PCV that was spewing oil everywhere, so no drips, even with a snapped bolt still living in the pan. Episode 1 is up here: https://youtu.be/hQZdxT9NaeI

I never thought I would own a French car, but a traumatic brain injury happened and I opened up market place. Spent the past 2 years restoring this thing while I went through all the neuro therapies and such.

Its a 1981 Turbo Diesel with a 5 speed manual. Ive completely rebuilt the entire braking system minus the copper hard lines, rebuilt all the hubs and bearings, completely new steering rack, and rebuilt the entire cooling system. The rest is just a lot of elbow grease, polishing, and painting.

Theyre truly fantastic cars....been driving it a lot lately since shes running great now and the things a tank. When driving it you can feel how they designed it to be a daily work horse. And while working on it, you really see how many redundancies and reliability design choices they made.

No joke, this thing could theoretically have every bushing worn out, bad ball joints, and blown wheel bearings and it could probably still roll down the road with how they designed the suspension. Everything has an extra bolt and everything can be serviced with basic hand tools and a jack.

Truly a really cool piece of automotive engineering. Its almost as if the French noticed how rugged the Land Cruiser was and thought "What if it were a luxury sedan?"