Best of luck with your find Russel.
My 1969 280SL had neither been started nor driven in ten years when I bought it. I froze to death checking it for rust, but when I found none I just bought the car. Outside of the obvious culprits (fuel tank and pump, belts and hoses, tires, fluids, etc.), the car was relatively easy to bring back to life. The only real anomoly I ran into was rad fluid frozen to the consitancy of paste in the outlet from the engine block, in the thermostat housing, and some of the auxillary coolant lines. Seeing as your car would appear to have been started and ran on at least a semi-annual basis, I doubt this will be a problem with yours. Tires are a snap as long as you are not concerned with the original 190/75/R14 rating (I'm quoting from memory so shoot me if I'm wrong!). I'm running 195/70/R14's now, and though there might be fractional spedometer error, it won't exactly matter as the speedo tends to flicker and wander around a bit. As does the tach by the way. Even if they look good, your heater levers are going to probably turn to confetti the first time you try to operate them (two of the four of mine did). Although being told by more than one person in the know that the levers were the least of my worries, that the valves and the heater core fittings and what not were sure to be rusted and inoperative, when I got it apart all it really needed was new levers. The cables were all operating the bits they were supposed to operate, and despite the job of replacing the levers was a bit of a head scratcher with not a whole lot of room to do anything, I got them in fine, they work perfect, and I was glad I replaced the light bulbs as I really never want to get in there again! The brakes save the master cylinder and a few steel and flex lines are original and never touched. Same with the radiator, the transmission, the differential, the front end, the rear end, the middle end, and the end in sight.
I got lucky in my find and I know it. I hope you get lucky in your's as well.
If you want to follow the story of my Pagoda saga, search for Barn Find or snowyt 69. It happened a couple of years back, but there might be something of value there seeing as you are basically in my old shoes.
Oh...and as to why I haven't written any follow up, it is simply because it would have been way to boring. I mean who really wants to read this...
"Topped up with gas. Drove to the golf course. Made a birdie. Topped up with gas. Drove to my sister's place 400 kilometers up the road. Topped up with gas. Twisted the key and just went for a drive for the fun of it."
May such boring posts be your future Russel.
