Engine Bay Repaint and a rubber Grommets

[Kevkeller]

My engine is out and I’m prepping to repaint the engine bay. Anyone who has done this did you completely remove the wire harness out of the bay or did you tie it off to keep it out of the way?

Are all the engine bay gaskets available? Is there a good place to get the gaskets? Any places to avoid?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Peter]

My experience is Kavin that all gaskets are available (in Europe and the States) at the know suppliers and yes I tie the wire harness off to keep it out of the way. This worked without any issue.

[Leester]

Kevin,

Here is a prior post that may help:  https://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=30795.msg223555#msg223555

And there are other postings on the subject.  If you want the grommets with MB part numbers on them, you have to get them from MB or possibly Authentic Classics. Other sources I know of are SLS and SLS has a very nice graphic:  https://www.sls-hh-shop.de/main/en/mercedes-230-280sl-w113-/54-electrical-equipment-at-body/54-d-rubber-grommets.

I believe that our Tech Manual has a very nice graphic that Pawel put together some time back with locations of grommets by part number but I'm not seeing it at the moment. 

I think you should be able to work around the wiring harness without having to remove it completely. I have some fairly extensive notes from when I did this so if you have any specific questions I'll be happy to go back to my notes.  Good luck.

[Charles 230SL]

..I think you should be able to work around the wiring harness without having to remove it completely..

hi Kev, Leester and Peter are right - you can paint the engine bay without removing the harness. Bud's sprayed my car and engine bay 11 years ago without removing the harness. They simply masked off the harness and tied it out of the way (note the engine was still in the car).
Bud's carries a firewall grommet kit: https://www.budsbenz.com/catalog/230-250-280-sl/o-rubber-seals-hardtop-and-softtop-body-and-interior/O240-135 and a number of other grommets as well.   

[Kevkeller]

Thanks for the help gents. Much appreciated.

Kevin

[Pawel66]

Kevin,


I believe that our Tech Manual has a very nice graphic that Pawel put together some time back with locations of grommets by part number but I'm not seeing it at the moment. 

Thank you, but I do not think I can take credit for that (WRe effort ). Indeed it disappeared from there. I put it back in the Technical Manual under content for Full Members (attaching it here would make it public). It gives the Mercedes part numbers. I believe: if buying rubber, buy it from Mercedes. The quality is best there and if there are parts with logo, you will get them with logo.

[Pawel66]

Kevin,

I guess you may know this already, in which case sorry to pollute the thread.
You will certainly need to make the lifetime decision if the plugs in inner fenders are there and if they are painted body color or fitted after painting.

https://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=34803.msg254835#msg254835

I am, personally, in "The Holy Grail" camp.

[johnk]

While as others stated you can paint around the wire harness I didn’t want to take the chance of it containing dust when I spray or accidentally bumping against wet paint when you have to move it around to paint. It wasn’t that bad to pull mine through the firewall.

The only way I can thin you can leave it in without it marring wet paint as you paint around the engine bay would be to put a hook in your ceiling and drop a line to hang it in the air. My ceiling was too high to do that.

[Peter]

as said before, it caused no problems for the painter and no damage or scars.