Rust and drain holes...

[scoot]

Hi, trying to figure out whether or not to buy the 250SL that is sitting in my garage for a few more days.  I'm trying to find all the good areas to search for rust and came up with a couple of questions:

1.  I removed the wooden carpeted boxes behind the seat exposing the area below.  In the area below there are a couple of areas on each side that are recessed about as much as a small paper cup.  Those areas show signs of rust but it looks like surface rust.  Should I panic, or just try to clean them up and coat them?  Is there any sort of drain hole in this area?

2.  Drain lines and clogged drain lines -- where should I be looking for these, and what should I do with them when I find them?  For what it is worth, the carpets and seats are out of the car.

3.  The doors - does water get inside the doors and if so, does it have a way of getting out?

Unrelated question:
How difficult is it to replace the 3 wood pieces on the top of the dash?  I probably should search the forum for that - I imagine there are instructions somewhere...

thanks!
Scott

[Jonny B]

Go to the search function, limit the search to "Subject only" and use
"drain" as the search key. I think you will find what you are looking for there. This subject has been a topic of interest on the site.

The speaker cover is pretty easy to take out, there should be two screws holding it in place that you can access.

The right side strip is also reasonably easy, but I believe you need to pull out the glove box liner (also pretty easy)

It is the left side wood strip that is a real knuckle buster. This has also seen a lot of postings, use the search

Here is one link:http://www.sl113.com/forums/index.php?topic=5427

I used "wood" as the search term, subject only, and got a reasonable number of hits. You should get just the information you are looking for.

Good luck.

Jonny B
1967 250SL Auto

[jameshoward]

Do a search for 'TUV' and you will find a thread started by me about rust, firewalls, drainage, etc. It might help answer some of your questions.

Ref the doors, yes, water does ingress - more so if the seals that sit against the glass are old. However, it also drains out through drainage holes in the bottom. But the doors are aluminium anyway, so they won't rust. That's not to say, though, that the window mechanisms are in great shape. They can be a pain. Remove the door panel is straight forward - undo the screws that hold on the chrome door jamb and the chrome strips along the outer edge of the door. Remove the large piece of chrome at the door hinge; slide off the little plastic pad on the window handle and unscrew; flick off the two chrome covers on the door lock (if present) and remove the two screws; under the screw under the door closing handle; eases out the plastic half-ball thingy on the interior door opening handle and remove that screw then just ease up the door panel and away it comes.

I don't think I've missed anything, but there are no tricks to it.

Good luck.

JH

[doitwright]

If you are looking for common rust areas check these out.

Look under the trunk matt.

Try jacking up the car using the jack tubes in the rocker panels.  There are 2 on each side.  Any sounds of fatigue means bad rust in the longitudinal frame below the doors.

Lightly poke on the inner front wheel well to the rear of the tire.

Fit your hands inside the front wheel well above the tire and find the shelf below the fender.  You might want to wear gloves since this area usually holds road dirt and is a place for rust to start and cannot be easily seen without a mirror. Push down on that shelf to determine if there is any give in the metal.

Then of course the floors you should observe from underneath.

If you have not been there, www.motoringinvestments.com has alot of photos and info for what to look for.

Good Luck!

Frank Koronkiewicz
Willowbrook, Illinois

1970 280SL Light Ivory

[psmith]

The drain tubes from the fresh air box are up under the dash.  You have to remove the underdash panels to see them.  Here are some pictures.
Right Side



Left Side


Pete S.

[dsayars]

I agree with everything that's been said and I'll add a few things:

1. Your worst enemy is the fact that the car is a convertible and past a certain age you'll get leakage into the passenger compartment that stays in the carpet and never dries. This gradually works in between the over- and undercoating on the floors, especially in the corners and hollows them out, destroying the metal but leaving the coatings intact. Thus the floor rust you can see may just be the tip of the iceberg, though from the pictures you show, I don't see a lot.

2. The drainage tubes with hoses shown in your picture look intact, and that's very good. *Keep these clear*. They easily get clogged with wet debris, and being steel, they will rust and water will ingress into the chamber forward of the dash that they pass trough and are supposed to protect. Mine did that and I had to re-fabricate that whole structure. While I was at it, I replaced the through tubes with with copper ones.

3. Thing to look for around the trunk is the channel where the seal glues in. If the seal gets separated, water gets in and makes holes, then next time it rains it drips the holes and destroys the floor of the trunk. It doesn't take much of a hole or very many of them.