Today was spent assembling the piston and con rod assemblies,fitting the new rings after checking them in the bores to ensure the ring gasp is correct . Then fitting the crank followed by fitting the crank seal . a little task which can up to an hour to get right so the crank doesn’t leak.
The block was repainted to an original type of black finish
With new side plates and fasteners the short block is beginning to look like an engine again.
The cylinder Block and Crank with it’s newly balanced flywheel arrived back yesterday From Chiltons ,Here in brisbane.
As per usual the standard of their work is exemplary with the block bored to 4th oversize ,the crank crack tested and polished with the Flywheel modified to suit the balance of the crank. The block was tanked with all of the plugs etc removed to blear the oilways and water jacket of any sludge etc. The red finish is Glptol applied by mercedes back in 1970,which even the cuastic tank wont remove.
To convert an automatic trans engine to a Manual requires a bit of work
Pictured on the left is the original 220SE flywheel with segmants removed to match the rotating balnce of the drive plate on the right. .A lot of material had to be removed . The reason the 250SE engine vibrated itself to death was because this simple job had not been carried out.
it’s a bit hard to see here but the gear lever is that little thing between the seats.
A customer bought this recently with the knowledge there was a engine vibration.
Supposedly the engine was an automatic engine (bolted originally to a DB automatic) from a W108 250S. This was supposed to have been causing the vibration as result of a mis match of parts. I removed the engine to find a lot more than just an unbalanced flywheel …
The spigot bearing cover shows damage from some clown forcing the trans into place
The timing chain was so worn it was loose to point where i could lift it over the sprocket.
The crank bearings were destroyed,two of the bearing sets are welded to the crank and the bearing bores are flogged out,destroying the block. 
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The prwevious owner had spent $17,000 on the body work and allegedly spent $4000 on the engine…hmmmm i wonder where?
A customer contawced me recently with a tale of woe. His 280S trans had failed completely so he bought a 1969 280SE,unfortunately it was built before the 5th month 1969 and has the DB automatic instead of the later 722 trans.b So… the blue car was found in a Wrecking yard and purchased as a parts… and as is usual with these things it had a lot more good points (apart from a lot of rust ) than bad points so the descision has been made to fix the blue car with parts from the grey/silver car . The latter will be broken for parts and it has a good 250S engine with a SL cam,giving it a lot more useful horsepower over stock.
I’ve been restoring a 190SL for an owner and part of the task involves rebuilding it’s non standard DCOE carbs. A lot of W121’s were fitted with these over years to get around the problems thrown up by the awful Solex side draft carbs originally fitted.
Carb on the left has been rebuilt
Carb on the right is in as is condition with blocked jets and water damge
As can be seen in the left photo the chokes have signs of water from the fuel supply.Carb on the right after stripping ,wet blasting and rebuilding.
Below is how the original fuel pipe looked before restoration .
Below the original pipe after replating the pipe and ferules with the ends resoldered back in place.
Temporary mock up of the rear carb in place.
On one of the latest jobs, a very sweet W111 220SE cabriolet i had to sort out a leak in the power steering. Specs call for a maximum of 1 mm free play in the shaft ,but this was had close to 10 mm and a slight leak . After contacting the local vickers dealers and getting no where fast I bought the complete kit to overhaul the pump from Mercedes Classic Center. Special tools are required to reassemble the pump ,mainly to fit the bush into the housing after the shaft and the two shell half’s are fitted, then a further tool to fit the outer seal.
The above pic shows the bush installer in place
The original shaft has a straht shaft where the pulley fits but the new one has a taper with a slot for a woodruff key.
A new pulley was also installed with a taper bore ,thankfully available from the classic center.
The Front half of the caer went yeserday but the engine,trans and diff are remaining. i still have headlights,grills and front guards for sale.
All rerassembled and ready to be fitted back on the car in a few weeks ,for tuning.
This is a link to the 2nd SL built by Daimler Benz as part of it’s post war effort to reenter auto racing…enjoy!!
benzkraft 