ashtray lid

[benzportland]

Okay I know I have seen the answer to this question somewhere here before, but I will be darned if I can find it now    Anyway, my question is simply whether the material on the ashtray lid was made in both leather and vinyl, or just vinyl?  I thought I had read somewhere here that both versions were made and were matched to the material used for the rest of the car's interior.  Thanks in advance for the info!

[jsaylor]

On the subject of ashtray lids. Does anyone have or can you take a photo of the underside of the lid and hinge.  I plan on fabricating one but my base has nothing that indicates how the top hinge worked.

Thanks!

[Klaus]

The ashtray lid was always covered with a thinner MB-Tex (vinyl) foil. The regular MB-Tex or leather material was too thick. Many have changed the material later, but if leather is chosen, thin leather ("Spaltleder") should be used.

All 230SL up to VIN 113042-..-012466, resp. August 6, 1965, had black ashtray lid inserts, regardless of upholstery color. This is also the case with the inserts in the window crank levers. From there on, the color matched the upholstery.

Source: postings on pagodentreff.de

[benzportland]

Thank you so much for the information and answer!  We should have an "ashtray tour" of information on here someday. 

[Klaus]

benzportland - Peter would love it if you started here:
http://www.sl113.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Interior.Ashtray

Jim, no expert has answered your question. The underside of the lid is flat. The lid may have to be dismantled to see the hinge. Maybe some parts supplier has an exploded view; the MB parts catalog only shows the assembled part.

[hands_aus]

I had the top and bottom but not the spring used to hold the two together.

After asking members of this site for pictures of the complete setup I could see what the spring needed to do.

One day I sourced a short length of the spring steel strapping used to bind large parcels.

With a pair of tin snips I was able to size a piece of the strapping and while looking at the picture of the spring I made one and tried it on a dry run.

I made 3 or 4 of them until I was happy with the final result. THE SPRING SHOWN IN THE PICTURES IS GENUINE MB.

On my centre console there is a small cut out that the spring fits into. I think this helps to locate the unit in the wood.

How the unit is held together.......
The spring fits into a clip on the main body.
The spring is designed to push the rear of the lid upwards locking the small tabs under the shaped top edge of the main body.
When the lid is pivotted upwards the back edge is pushed onto the spring and there is an upward pressure which holds the two pieces together.

[psmith]

Bob beat me to it, but I wanted to test uploading pictures from firefox, so here's mine:

[Klaus]

Jim,
unless I completely misread your question you were asking for photos of the hinge, but received wonderful descriptions for the spring.
If I am correct, here are photos of the hinge
The hinge is a metal strip of dimensions 100 mm long by 4 mm wide by 0.5 mm thick.
It is held in place by two tabs (everything in the photos is symmetrical left and right.
(If you need a dimensional drawing of the spring, I have that too)

[jsaylor]

Klaus,

Thanks! You understood perfectly.  From your photo's I'll be able to fabricate a new hinge.  I don't have the lid so I'm going to cheat and make one out of mahogany to match the center console with a padded MB tex insert.

Thanks again.

[benzportland]

My original question was about the covering of the lid, the rest should be under a separate post titled "ashtray lid hinge replacement" or such, simply for the reason of helping people who are browsing to actually find that topic in the future.  This appears to be a post only about the lid, but as it turns out there is terrific information on the hinge which might be overlooked in the future. 

[Peter van Es]

Not to worry... the search function on this system is much improved over the old system. And secondly... I'm looking forward to you completing the entire article in the Technical Manual! 

Peter