Hello to all,
This is my first post on this forum, which I'm very grateful to have found. I've spent the last couple of weeks looking through the various posts and topics (including Andy Burns' exhaustive restoration story). It's great to have found such an awesome resource related to these cars.
As quick background, my father bought a lightly restored 1965 230 SL in 1984 when we lived in Paris, France. He imported the car to the US in 1986 and has had it in the US ever since. The car has moved around the country with him over the years, but has spent the last 20 years in California. My dad isn't really a "car" guy, and unfortunately he really did the minimum amount of upkeep needed to keep the car running and usable. Late last year he decided he needed to simplify his life a bit, and it was time to get rid of the car. My siblings weren't really interested in the car, and I didn't want to let it out of the family so I bought it from my dad (at a family price) and shipped it from CA to NY. In contrast to my father, I am a "car guy", although I have no real experience working on cars aside from the basics. I am very proficient at detailing and cosmetic maintenance.
I have been planning a modest mechanical and cosmetic restoration of the car not for any type of show purposes, but simply to have an attractive and usable driver car. The project list includes such things as finding and stopping the oil leaks that have been going on for years, refinishing the hard top, replacing the soft top, replacing the seat covers and foam cores, replacing the seat belts, and doing some restoration to or replacement of the leather on the dashboard.
Step one is to deal with the oil leaks from engine, the cooling system leaks and the rear differential leaks. I found a local mechanic (based on a friend's referral) who doesn't specialize in vintage Mercedes cars, but has worked on some, but he generally specializes in vintage cars. He seems knowledgable and pretty familiar with the car. He has been working to identify the areas where the leaks are coming from so we can create a plan of attack to solve the issues. The car actually runs pretty well.
Today, he did a leak down test and called me quite concerned about the fact that cylinder one is leaking significantly, to the point that he's surprised that car is running as well as it is. He suggested, unfortunately, that the only real course of action to solve this problem for the long run is an engine rebuild (or an exchange of this engine for another rebuilt one).
I was looking for some input & suggestions from the knowledgeable experts here - (1) is this the right conclusion from the result of the leak down test, (2) are the other reliable solutions to this problem (that won't just lead to other potential issues), (3) are there recommendations for good service providers that can rebuild this engine, or (4) who are dependable suppliers of rebuilt engines (I am aware of Buds Benz and I also saw Metric Motors in the Supplier Listing on this site.
This will be a long and almost certainly uneconomic restoration process (which I understand and I'm OK with) so I expect to be asking for a lot of help and input along the way. I will give back to the information base in whatever way I can along the way.
Thank you in advance for any help and input on the engine questions. As a parting shot, here's a picture of the car (and me) in December when the car was still in California.
