Author Topic: Restoration Difficulty Level (Read 946712 times)

andyburns · « **Reply #50 on:** July 16, 2013, 20:17:17 »

I live out in a pristine rural setting and do care a lot about the environment. In fact we drink the water from underneath our house via a drilled bore so letting toxins seep into the soil isn't an option. I have kitted the garage with two tellus gs80 industrial vacuums. Any dust is swept up into a pile and then sucked into this system. Also I go through mountains of rags which are used to mop up any thing that is wet like degreaser, solvents, etc. I bag up all the waste and take it down to a recycle centre who have a collection for toxic or non environmentally friendly waste. I am averaging one large waste sack every week bare minimum. It has actually blown me away how much this little car generates.

Quote from: pj on July 16, 2013, 15:01:11

Hi Andy,
amazing story and thanks for telling it in detail. It's inspiring to see all your hard work.

I have a quick question that I should have asked months ago. You did most of the work in your garage and you used a lot of chemicals. So what did you do with all the nasty stuff that didn't stick to the car? Did you let it go down the drain? Everyone's so worried about "being green" these days. I hesitate even to try and wash the greasy icky stuff away from underneath my 230SL because I don't want the dirty water running down my driveway and into the street and down the sewer.

andyburns · « **Reply #51 on:** July 17, 2013, 20:19:06 »

After running out of cash to finish the 230sl I tried to sell my 280se. I have 3 W108's so I figured this one would hurt the least. The market in NZ just didn't supply me a buyer for the price I was prepared to let it go for. I very reluctantly put my 2002tii up for sale with a very high reserve. The response was phenomenal and as a result the new owner is picking it up tonight. As they say the less doors a car has the more its worth.

Very mixed emotions as I know I will have a very hard time finding another should I realize I have made a terrible mistake. This little car is soooooo fun to drive and puts a huge smile on my face where ever I take it. As a kid all I ever wanted was a 2002tii. Took me till I was 40 to realize the dream.

Its taken me several years to 'sort out' and has taught me a lot about mechanical fuel injection a long time before I started working on the mercedes equivalent. For that I am eternally grateful to the little fella. I am just hoping when the 230sl is back together that I will experience the same attachment and not look back with regret for the sacrifice I have just made. Almost like a death in the family! Have any of you guys ever been in a similar situation. Would love to here you stories.

Bonnyboy · « **Reply #52 on:** July 18, 2013, 00:11:45 »

You cannot replace the 2002 with a 280sl.

They are so different in terms of fun factor but are both fun. In my 2002 I would slalomn the car, drift it sideways and just be a hooligan sometimes. In my 280sl I feel the urge to be a hooligan but I just have not been able to bring myself to that level for fear of seriously hurting my pocket book. Is the 280sl more fun than the 2002? - not really more fun but it is a convertable and is just a more grown up car. it is a whole lot more satisfying though. Instead of going for a wild ride and giggling the whole way I just have this sense of "confident calm" with a big grin on my face when driving the 280sl.

I never had a Tii but had two round tail light models - 1970 and 71 that I drove until my wife demanded that I get a car with airconditioning and was baby seat appropriate.

andyburns · « **Reply #53 on:** July 18, 2013, 07:08:38 »

The deal has been done. I now might be able to afford some new sunvisors for the 230..... just

pj · « **Reply #54 on:** July 19, 2013, 00:09:21 »

Hi Andy,
I'd like to give a brief answer to your question about the car being a "member of the family." Before I bought my 230SL, my father-in-law had a 1960 190D "Ponton" in his garage. He bought it new, drove it through 2 tours of duty in Germany and across Canada a couple times, and then parked it in his garage around 1974. I came on the scene in 1975 and had only ever seen it myself under a pile of garage junk. So when I prevailed upon him to sell it in 2010, it was like losing a member of the family for him. The good news is that I think he realized he had to let the old heap go some time, and I didn't hear him or any of the other members of the family complain. Happy ending, I guess.

andyburns · « **Reply #55 on:** July 19, 2013, 13:05:25 »

Difference is that my tii is fully restored, rare rhd, highly desirable and very hard to replace should I decide I have made a poor decision. A bit like RHD pagodas in New Zealand, bmw 2002's only very rarely come up for sale. Perhaps one a year if your lucky. Not like in the states where you could choose amongst any of 10 good examples on ebay on any day of the year.

andyburns · « **Reply #56 on:** July 22, 2013, 05:20:21 »

Spent a good 2 days over the weekend getting the door gaps as good as I possibly can. Takes dozens of small adjustments on the hinges to get it just right.

Sitting around today waiting for the paint booth to become available so decided to work on all the smaller bits and pieces that needed texture coating and final 2k high build primer before final top colour coat.

Even this small stuff soaks the time. Took everything back to bare metal and then the usual epoxy primer. These bits have taken 8 hours to this stage. Will put the final paint on tomorrow. Hopefully have pictures of final painted shell for you guys in a few days. Hopefully I have done some justice to the old girl.

GGR · « **Reply #57 on:** July 23, 2013, 11:53:21 »

Quote from: andyburns on July 17, 2013, 20:19:06

After running out of cash to finish the 230sl I tried to sell my 280se. I have 3 W108's so I figured this one would hurt the least. The market in NZ just didn't supply me a buyer for the price I was prepared to let it go for. I very reluctantly put my 2002tii up for sale with a very high reserve. The response was phenomenal and as a result the new owner is picking it up tonight. As they say the less doors a car has the more its worth.

Very mixed emotions as I know I will have a very hard time finding another should I realize I have made a terrible mistake. This little car is soooooo fun to drive and puts a huge smile on my face where ever I take it. As a kid all I ever wanted was a 2002tii. Took me till I was 40 to realize the dream.

Its taken me several years to 'sort out' and has taught me a lot about mechanical fuel injection a long time before I started working on the mercedes equivalent. For that I am eternally grateful to the little fella. I am just hoping when the 230sl is back together that I will experience the same attachment and not look back with regret for the sacrifice I have just made. Almost like a death in the family! Have any of you guys ever been in a similar situation. Would love to here you stories.

I've had many cars. The only one I really regret selling is my '72 Inca Orange 2002 with Cromodora wheels. The second one I sometimes regret having sold is my pristine 6.3. But way less than the 2002.

andyburns · « **Reply #58 on:** July 25, 2013, 13:38:55 »

Three very long days and the shell has now received the last of the silver. I am fairly happy with the result. Still a few imperfections that only surfaced after the paint went down. Annoying that they could have been addressed quite easily in the blocking stage. I ended up doing all the preparation, blocking, final rubbing, masking and final tack off and left the outside top coats to the painter. In total 220 hours at the painters work place. To be perfectly honest I felt way out of my comfort zone for most of the process and kind of regret being too tight to pay the money for a professional job. I really did learn a lot along the way but wish I had all the newly acquired knowledge before I started!

Finally get the shell back in the garage after the final polish tomorrow. Still have to blow the final coats on the bonnet and boot lid which might take another week or so but at least I can get to work on stripping out the front and rear sub frames for restoration. Compared to the body work this should be a piece of cake.

Larry & Norma · « **Reply #59 on:** July 26, 2013, 06:54:38 »

Great work, looking good.

andyburns · « **Reply #60 on:** July 30, 2013, 20:23:01 »

Car now home in my garage and I can get on with finishing it off. Started with fitting up the door rubbers. I ordered genuine mercedes parts but when I went to pick them up to my disgust they were very horrible aftermarket knock offs. Even from 10 feet I clocked them. Picking them up made me feel even worse. They had the consistency of those snake lolly confectionery you give to your kids. Almost a gooey consistency. I ran with them but further to my disgust when I got home they just didn't fit. Along the bottom of the door the length was about an inch to long and the notches to allow access to the lower trim moulding nuts were hand cut and in the wrong place all together. Take a look at the photos. I think they had been made in some horrible sweat shop in the guts of a third world country. I quickly sent them back. Has anyone had the same issues or was I just incredibly unlucky.

andyburns · « **Reply #61 on:** July 31, 2013, 02:19:56 »

Started the final repaint of satin black in the boot and soft top hatch today. Difficult area to get in and get a nice consistent coat going. Going quite well but having issues with over spray puffing back from in the trunk all over the main floor. Had to stop clean and re prep the main floor and continue.

stickandrudderman · « **Reply #62 on:** July 31, 2013, 06:38:44 »

A bit late now but it's better to do the inside black bits first!

andyburns · « **Reply #63 on:** August 04, 2013, 08:06:05 »

Couldn't resist. Just had to put a few of the 'critical' parts back on. Probably should have started in the engine bay and worked my way outward but damn it don't those badges shine.

andyburns · « **Reply #64 on:** August 05, 2013, 07:16:57 »

Out comes the filthy old front sub frame. I dont have a spring compressor at the moment so releasing the springs will be a bit hairy. Tackle that in the morning.

tel76 · « **Reply #65 on:** August 05, 2013, 16:11:15 »

There has to be a very good reason that I cannot see.
Why did you not undertake all this work before painting ?

andyburns · « **Reply #66 on:** August 05, 2013, 19:32:51 »

Hi Eric, I didn't take the sub frame out before painting because I don't have a jig to put the frame on. If you were doing this all the time in a restoration shop you could justify the time, expense and space required to have a jig lying about. I did think long and hard about making one before the paint process started. I needed to be able to roll the shell onto a tow truck and around the paint shop so the easiest solution was to leave the rolling chassis in tact. It really wont end up costing that much more extra time. The engine bay only needs a slight puff around the mounting points. Can apply the base and clear at home. I have spent a massive amount of time on my back working the underside of the car as well, cleaning and replacing both texture coat and factory seam lines and over coating with epoxy under coat. Once the rear frame is out (next weeks job) I will be finishing off the entire underside and apply the final paint. So it has been a bit of a pain in the ass having to work around it. Guess at the end of the day my methods are unorthodox and a little more costly in terms of time and money but I am hoping the result will be just as good. This isn't my profession and I also make up a lot of stuff along the way, some of it good and some bad. Hopefully the sub frame will be back in the car in a week. I have done one for my W108 and know the drill.

andyburns · « **Reply #67 on:** August 07, 2013, 04:40:02 »

Bit of a drama pulling apart the sub frame. There are 8 washers spot welded to the bottom of the sub frame which the main wishbone pivot arms bolt to. I assume that they are there to give additional support to the mount. When I pulled off one side half the washers peeled away with pivot arm. I swore quite a bit thinking of the additional pain I would have to endure to re-engineer. After measuring the washers thickness and inside diameter I took off to try and source some more. It would appear they are totally bespoke to the application and meant that I would be further modifying the new washers to suit before I even tackled the problem of how to weld them up. Went back to the drawing board and did some research in EPG and discovered that the 113 and 108's both share exactly the same sub frame. I breathed a very deep sigh of relief as I have access to an abundance of 108 parts. Off the hook!!

andyburns · « **Reply #68 on:** August 07, 2013, 04:44:07 »

Batch of parts ready to go off to get powder coated. One stop shop, bead blast and coating. I could get them all bead blasted and paint them with two pot epoxy paint but have decided to give myself a treat and get some of the grunt work outsourced. What a luxury!! Next job, a couple of days on a bead blaster and wire wheel getting parts ready for gold and zinc electroplating. Not looking forward to this job. Long arduous and dusty.

andyburns · « **Reply #69 on:** August 07, 2013, 04:53:56 »

Does anyone know definitively what color the early 230 exhaust manifolds were. When I first brought the car I thought that manifolds were aftermarket but now I believe the very early 230s had the extractors (see photo above) . They look very amateur and I am still surprised Mercedes ran with them. I am interested to know if they ran for the entire run of 230's or if they were replaced with the more common cast iron versions. If they are indeed factory I am impressed with how long they have lasted. Still quite good condition. I am going to have them coated in High temp ceramic material. Just trying to suss out what color to go with. Any help appreciated.

Garry · « **Reply #70 on:** August 07, 2013, 05:44:04 »

Andy,

Here is a photo of mine prior to fitting the inlet manifold. They have been peened.

DaveB · « **Reply #71 on:** August 07, 2013, 08:09:24 »

My early headers have a fine metallic coating, semi-crystalline like a light galvanizing.
I can post a photo soon.
The factory headers were discontinued late 1965 and replaced with the short cast manifolds.

andyburns · « **Reply #72 on:** August 07, 2013, 08:21:09 »

Hey Dave, thanks for that. Would appreciate a photo of yours to see if they are identical to mine. Garry what year is your car? I notice the rocker cover has the sand cast finish. I really really want to get my hands on one of these to complete the 'original' look. Cant find one anywhere. Rocking horse ****! Mine has been replaced with a latter model smooth cast cover. I have a friend with one of the sand cast covers and he has had a few issues with it sealing well. The mating surfaces didn't seem quite as well designed as the smooth version. Perhaps this issue prompted owners of early 230's to replace.

andyburns · « **Reply #73 on:** August 07, 2013, 08:31:45 »

I have been using a period Mercedes factory spring compressor to decompose the sub frame. This tool is, in my humble opinion, as much a piece of art as the car is in its own right. Superbly designed by a master tool maker. You really have to hold it in your hands to get a full appreciation of the quality. I think it would last a life time even if it were used ever day. Most things Mercedes made were totally over engineered! Would be interested to see photos of any other factory tools anyone else has lying about.

Valvechatter · « **Reply #74 on:** August 07, 2013, 10:10:14 »

Andy,
I only know enough to be dangerous on this point, but...
I am currently restoring a MK2 Jaguar. I powder coated the front suspension coil springs. A number of people told me that doing so was a big mistake. It seems that taking springs to 400 degrees or over negatively affects the spring. I am just suggesting some caution and perhaps checking this out some more before proceeding.

Lin

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Author Topic: Restoration Difficulty Level (Read 946712 times)

Valvechatter