Thanks Garry,
I agree about the arches, but until I read Achim's recent post 4 days ago on January 18th, I thought they were original equipment. This car is a driver, and about 3 weeks ago we originally started out doing some rust repair on the rear fenders and lower section across the rear of the car, intending to touch up the paint. Expecting paint matching problems (car was painted once in 1985), we talked to Transtar (our paint supplier) and they offered to supply a gallon of original MB-180 base coat and their new clear coat for us at no charge. So we went for the full paint job. Sometimes we get things out too fast, but urgency is not always a bad word. I have had jobs get buried in a corner for years and we no longer do this. Being uninformed about the 280SL, we stumbled along until I recently located this site. It is difficult to rework the fender edges in the middle of a paint job, and I truly apologize to all on this site who are really giving me the best advice and always trying to give me the proper guidance.
Can anyone tell me more about the accessory chrome arches? Were these a Mercedes option, or an aftermarket item? When were these available? I have seen pictures of these on other Mercedes, and on the darker colors they don't appeal to me, but on a silver car, they seem to blend in better. My wife always liked them - I did too until I found that they were not an original Mercedes option, or at least that is my understanding.
Our plan now (paint job came out perfect and is completed except for sanding and buffing) is to reassmble the car; and since we sadly did not perfectly prepare the fender edges, install the arches. We have no options other than starting all over on another paint job. This means waiting for another week for complete drying, sanding down the entire car, reworking the inner fender edges, primer, more block sanding, more primer and sanding, and then remasking and starting from scratch more or less. Since we will then need more paint, will have to get Transtar to mix up more, and they usually take a week or two (plus shipping time) to do custom mixing. Then there is always a chance that the next mix might not be a perfect match, or that the paint job wil not be as good at it looks today. All of this is just not practical for a driver and would take another month from start to finish. If we can't live with the arches, after driving the car this summer there could be a few nicks, we can later (next winter) remove the arches, but from our experience spotting in silver metallic is not easy, as the color will not be 100% the same, so another paint job will be necessary.
Sometimes things can go from bad to worse - I have expeienced this many times. Several years ago we were working on a 1934 Dodge street rod pickup in a custom orange metallic color and spent weeks taking care of tiny little flaws - with paint lifting when touched up and other common problems - eventually using an air brush. We eventually finished the truck and it is perfect, but it wasn't easy and the expense and time involved was unbelievable. Can you imagine what this 280SL would look like if we spotted in above each wheel and the color was not matching the rest of the car? If it gets to this point, we will repaint the entire car again, but this is not an option for us at this time, as we schedule jobs in our shop and have a major (non Mercedes) project coming up starting the first week in February.
My knowledge of any Mercedes car is minimal, but am learning. Just last week I was also informed by Achim (thank you Achim - greatly appreciate your observations and wisdom) that this car was missing the chrome molding on rear fenders behind each wheel and I ordered a set from Poland just yesterday. Thanks again to others for all of the helpful advice and recommendations - too bad that the information about the chrome arches came midway through the painting process, as it could have been corrected in advance.
In summary, want to thank everyone on this forum for the sincere and helpful advice and comments. To say I am impressed with this attention is an understatement. My regret is that I did not check into things more thoroughly prior to starting on what started out to be some minor body work and a quick paint job. Anyhow, I will later post pictures of the completed project in a couple of weeks or sooner. At least I have refurbished and improved the appearance somewhat for a nice car that needed some TLC.
Fritz
