I think I found my mildew problem

[Paddy_Crow]

Check out these photos. I just finished removing my seats and picked up the carpet under them. This is what I found, I think the padding is supposed to be brown...

Driver's side


Passenger's side


But check out the condition of the sheet metal, very solid!

[jeffc280sl]

Better mildew than rust.  Floor pans look great.

Jeff C.
1970 280SL 4-speed

[Paddy_Crow]

Yep, carpet and pad is pretty easy to replace. Sheet metal, not so.

I'll be scraping everything out, also planning on putting a coat of primer on before the Dynapad.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch...

[Paddy_Crow]

Quick update on this. Now that I've further torn into my car, I don't believe mildew was the issue. I've also decided that the black color that was in the pad (sorry, I deleted the images) was tar from the sound proofing.

After I removed my carpet, the smell did diminish but was not completely eliminated. When I dismantled the dash to remove the wood bows, I discovered a lot of mouse droppings. I vacuumed up all the droppings and blew out the areas I couldn't reach with compressed air. I also cleaned all surfaces I could get to. Voilla! I can no longer detect the obnoxious odor.

[waqas]

Any chance you can upload those photos onto this website?  It would be great information to have...

Waqas in Austin, Texas

[Peter van Es]

This is exactly why I think it's a bad idea to link to photos on other sites, even if they are easier to upload there, or allow bigger file sizes.

If you would like to be able to see pictures in posts 5 years from now, encourage everyone to only upload pictures HERE on http://www.sl113.org . Please follow these detailed instructions. In fact, on the new forum system I may decide to prohibit linking to external photographs for all new posts.

Additionally, people ask me:

 

• If I upload the files to an external site (such as Flickr, TinyPic, Picasa) then I understand it is my responsibility to keep the links active.... Sure, but what if TinyPic, or Flickr, or whatever service you use goes belly up five years from now? And you've sold your Pagoda and don't frequent this site anymore. We will then lose the information. So, especially for important pictures, please upload them here.
• I thought we were running out of space, that's why I am uploading pictures elsewhere.... Well, we are running out of database space, i.e. the stuff where our messages and data is stored. We still have plenty of space for files and pictures. However, if you post lots of pictures from a social event, I don't mind that they are hosted elsewhere. But pictures with technical information, part of a thread to which they have the importance of a 1000 words, they really need to be on our site. Anyway, we are planning to move the site precisely to get more space, for both the databases and the pictures.
• Finally, on formatting. When you upload pictures to Flickr or Picasa, they frequently are 1024x768 pixels or even bigger. Many people reading the forum however complain about these picture sizes making posts unreadable by moving the width of the message board beyond the window size when a large picture is included. So be considerate to your fellow users, and try and restrict picture sizes. 640x480 is fine for most images, and 800x600 should be sufficient even for most technical details. On the new forum software by the way, large pictures will not move the forum message text way out anymore.

Peter

1970 280SL. Also known as 'admin@sl113.org' and organiser of the Technical Manual.