Engine and general mechanical check over and Rust Repair

This car was booked in some time back for a mechanical tune up but the owner had found signs of rust ,which he asked me to provide an estimate of costs to sort it all out.

A price was agreed to and a start has been made. Although the car looks great it is in dire strait sand appears to have been sitting somewhere for a very long time in long grass or possibly on it’s belly.

Firstly a set of new sills and floor panels were ordered but thanks to the virus this took far too long for the parts to arrive (never use the Pitney bowes global shipping program,) while the wait was happening the interior has been removed to get reupholstered ,

it was necessary to start here as it was suspected that the rust was really extensive.

Most of the sills are composed of polyester body filler.

The Left side is proving to be very problematic because the guard appears to have been welded to the sill. it will have to bwe cut off to get access to the worst rust.

The floor will have to bwe rebuilt completely before the rotted out sills are removed,the car will collapse otherwise.

To remove the seats it was simply a matter of lifting them up and out,the mounts were so rusted they came apart.

The underside of the car has yet to be stripped of all the tar etc but it has been deemed easier to replaced the rusted sections first,to save time.

to be continued now that the materials to build all the replacements for the rear floor section has been ordered.

his W114 is a low mileage example which is unfortunately show a bit of rust in the fresh air plenum in the cowl .

Picture on the left is the right hand corner ,the insulation pad has been pulled aside to get a look at the damage. the right picture shows the inside with the hand brake mech on the side where rust has come through there too.

The Right side front guard has been removed to get access to the rust on the cowl. the hole at the top was caused by moisture getting into the weld seam over the last 50 years.

The whole rustyb part was cut out,revealing more rust inside the plenum which can only be accessed from the engine compartment. New steel is welded into place ,etch primed then zinc primed .This will be painted body colour and then wax treated.

The sound and heat insulating pad has been removed to expose the rust.

A bit hard to see here but the front panel on the cowl has been removed to expose the inside of the plenum. the grey is factory primer ,which was removed and replaced with etch primer then zinc primer ,to be coated with body colour and wax coated to prevent rust in the future .The Shiney grill is the fresh air intake and it allows water to get into the plenum when it rains. This has been removed to gain access to the entire plenum and repair spot rusting.

This is an engine bought to me recently for a rebuild. It had been rebuilt in the past but over heated due to a leaking and corroded cylinder head. Unfortunately the head has been planed too much ,so the only option the owner felt he had was to get the bottom end rebuilt with the block surface machined flat. The engine had already been rebored to 87.5 mm ,the maximum so a good used block was sourced which had already been bored in the past to a 1st repair size. this allowed the block to be bored to 2nd repair size using the pistons from the other block. these are in like new condition . The conrods have been rebushed which is necessary on all of these six cylinder engines.

A nice 1959 190SL which the owner said was pulling badly to the right has come in for some work, but needed a full set of wheel cylinders to make safe.

The Brakes weren’t releasing properly and the home made push rod was too long .a heavier version imitating an original ajustable push rod was fabricated. The device in the right picture is the fuel tank sender which had rusted up, along with a half a tank of very old fuel

A bit difficult to see but there are spots on the exhaust manifold…it’s petrol dripping from the carbs. Not Good…..

An example of what i found in the brakes . This was the right rear hub, the small round thing is a push point on the brake shoes, there is supposed to be a forked rod pushing on this when the hand brake is applied. It was behind the shoe,so no hand brake. the larger round part is one of four self adjustors on the rear brakes. i had to strip those and rebuild them as the thrust washers were broken. Everything is working as it should now. Carb over haul is next.

This is a 1973 W114 Coupe, a 280E which has had some horrific rust repairs in the past. The Owner has asked me to replace the rust damaged floors which will require me to cut out the old ones to be replaced with new ones.

the pic on the left shows the type of repair, tape covered in black tar ,which has to be removed.

Center pic shows another mess covered in black stuff while the right hand pic from another car demonstrates what it is supposed to look like.

Rear Floor Next to hand brake mechanism , which shows a paper clip being used to hold the link pin in place.

Another part of the floor showing a rust hole full of expanding foam .

Another Veiw under anther W114 showing what the Drivers side floor and handbrake cable pocket should look like .Note the rust free jack point. on the Blue car this has rusted badly.

Left side jack point and what they are supposed to look like. right is NOT what we want.

This is what the left side rocker panel end and floor will look like when repairs are finished.

How the sills and floor should meet .this has largely disappeared on the blue car.

together in the shop.

The Sad remains of the floor … Skilfully hidden by covering with bits of rubber, lots of Polyfilla and tar.

A sample of the debris removed from one floor section.

The battery has been leaking onto the passenger side (Left) inner fender and rusted out the floor. In this picture the rusty part of the footwell,next to the firewall has been removed.

This is the peice from a donor wreck used to replace the rusted part. As can be seen all of this has to be inserted to replaced the parts damaged by leaking battery acid.

This is the part that was removed, as can be seen it involved a lot of work with much panel damage covered up by previous repairers .

With the rusted part removed including the sill and jack point the damage doesn’t look so bad.

The replacement section in Place

The Circle illustrates a gap,this was where a peice madein the same shape as the Sill Section but 1.5 mm smaller has been placed inside ,then used to weld the two parts together and add strength.

So the next part is to replace the right rear quarter . this had been “repaired” in the past but wasn’t the correct shape and was full of body filler . The spot welds have been drilled out ,’unpicked’ . The center peice below the rear screen has to be removed to fix rust,but that comes later.

In this shot, the arrow points to a wrinkle in the B pillar where it’s been bent in the past in an accident . The outer skin has now been removed making this repair easier.

The wheel house has damamge which has to be straightened before the new skin can be fitted .

In this picture,it shows how the old skin was startng to rust on the inside because the window trim was leaking. Below, the area is indicated by the orange arrow .the yellow arrow indicates where holes were punched into the panel In the past, in an attempt to pull a dent out . this did more damage ,requiring the replacement of this part.

The wheel house has lots of dents made when the previous attempt at repair was made.

A customer has engaged us to rebuild his 1974 450SLC. This car has been rebuilt and maintained throughout it’s life including some time off the road in Storage. the paint is tired and flaking off so it will stripped back to bare metal,rust repaired and repainted before reassembly. it’s also rather special in that it will be four speed manual.

The car has been stripped to the bare shell in preparation for Stripping to bare steel .

The shell is very dusty after being in another shop for two weeks.

This is the Sump for the 6.3 M100 Engine .On the right front corner. Oil was leaking through the weld and the side of the pan was full of cracks. All were leaking.

The welds were very porous and leaking badly.

The easiest way to fix all of the cracks and bad welding was to cut the bottom off and make a whole new bottom and weld it in place.

The Engine was rolled over to get the Sump off and to replace the crank seals . The crank shaft had to come out ,but bearing damage was revealed.

Number 7 Conrod bearing was flogged out and the conrod bore distorted . The Big end bore was resized.

Careful measuring of the crank revealed it to be free of any damage  so will be cleaned and reinstalled.

The Bores are ok and only needed a light hone to restore the crosshatch pattern. The rings are worn and will be replaced.

to be continued….

A bit Crowded ,the 6.3 is being wheeled into the paint shop for the final Parts of the body repair and paint work.

The final coats of paint are on and just need polishing now.

Moved out of the paint booth and taken off the Rotisserie .The shell is now on the hoist to receive all the under pinnings

The 6.3 is now headed into the booth to be finished .Here,it’s on the chassis rack which is on wheels

The Engine bay needed a bit of touch up so here it’s masked up so the paint overspray can’t escape

The finish is Satin Black but here it’s still wet so it looks glossy. This type of paint takes a few days to set properly.

Here is the trans tunnel and I’ve been refitting the fuel and brake lines. All of the clips have new rubbers and the plating restored.

The steering column is in place ,along with the front part of the wiring loom ,Horns and brake lines. The pad on the firewall has been replaced with a new one .All Australian Built Mercedes Car had a black Engine bay.

The cable here is the new generator cable ,with the Cold start Valve ,which is different to all of the later model 220SE’s which have the cold start valve in the intake manifold .

In the lower left of the picture is the aircleaner which has been restored . The brake reservoir has had the bracket restored

The cables,the cold start and flasher relays,ignition coil new brake lines are in place. The injection pump cold start wiring are in place .The Heater feed pipe is in place ,after being remade in copper to prevent it rusting out again . The little plaque on the left inner fender is the Body tag from the Australian Mercedes Assembly plant in Melbourne with it’s Australian only body number.

The Front and rear ends are nearing readiness for installation .

Here is the engine as removed from the Car initially .It needs a lot of oil leaks rectified and the valve stem seals replaced. I did a leak down test and it has good sealing and compression’s on all six cylinders.

a couple of days later and the crank seals have been replaced, The Damper had to be replaced because someone in the past had fitted it in the wrong place(the damaged one is sitting on the frame under the engine. .I have no idea of how they managed to set the ignition timing . The large black bracket is for the air conditioning compressor. All of the hoses have been replaced . There is a new water pump air bleed pipe ,and all of the mounting bolt holes needed to be repaired with helicoils.

All of the exhaust valve oil seals had been fitted incorrectly ,so they leaked badly.

Both intake and exhaust seals were replaced on all cylinders.

The timing chain is worn out as is the tensioner so those will have to be replacedto get the engine performing properly.

This is the inside of the Thermostat housing and as can be seen ,the seat for the bottom part of the thermostat itself has been eaten away over time so it wouldn’t have been working properly. This is very important with the mechanical fuel injection system which relies on the coolant circulating to the injection pump to set the cold and warm running mixtures.

Here, the corroded one on the left is compared with a good part.

Next… reassembling the engine trans together and fitting to the front in preparation for fitting into the car.