Tool kit question

[Shvegel]

Checking out my tool kit and I just realized that one of the 4 open end wrenches does not match the manufacturer of the other three. My question is are they supposed to all match or were they a mix and match deal?

[Jonny B]

Good question, I just checked the tool kit in my 280 SL, which is the original to the car (as best as I can determine) and the four wrenches are all Dowidat. In the tool kit for the 250 SL which was a rebuilt car, the wrenches are from Dowidat, Heyco and Matador! I would suspect (heavy emphasis on suspect) that at any given time the wrenches would match. I would not stress too much on this. If it does bother you, it would be quite easy to find the same brand on ebay. These are very common and not at all expensive.

The only thing to really watch for is that they are stamped with "Mercedes Benz" on the opposite side of the wrench. These manufacturers were common for the German brands. I have been looking for a set of the large adjustable pliers to complete a spare tool kit. I saw a pair for $95 and decided to pass. I did a search of the manufacturer and found a set (several actually) with BMW stamped and those were less than half the price…..?! Tool bubble??

[49er]

 I took a peak at my original tool kit and all four open ends are made by 'Dowidat", screwdriver set made by "Pelo Obgm", Adjustble pliers made by 'Heyco", spark plug wrench made by "Hazet", and the small pliers made by "Hapewe" and has no MB logo or name. Quite a mix of suppliers.

John

[Peter van Es]

Have you guys heard about the Technical Manual ?

See http://www.sl113.org/wiki/Accessories/Toolkit

Peter

[Bob G ✝︎]

Johnny:
I got some spare  pliers Hazet a long  time a go same as Mercedes-Benz just  no star  very inexpensive.
The  cream of the crop is the fuse pliers  they made two different kinds I was lucky and got both. They are
in-practical to use compared to what you can buy at  a good tool manufacture or  hardware store. Sine  my car
is never going to  be a show car. I don't care.
Sincerely
Bob Geco

[Jonny B]

Peter,

Touche, on the search. The manual is not clear if there would be a mix of wrenches in a single tool kit.

Bob,

I do have both types of the fuse pullers. I have actually found them to be quite functional, once a year, I use them to twist/rotate the fuses to ensure good contacts.

[Shvegel]

Thanks for the replies. I had read the Technical Manual on toolkits but it wasn't clear.

Jonny B.
I think I bought the pliers you were looking at.  I bought a sedan tool kit years ago for around $50 so the SL only pliers although expensive rounded out a complete kit.

[Jonny B]

Believe me I completely understand about getting the "last piece". Having the full tool kit for $145 (if I did the math right) is a bargain and then some.

[mmizesko]

Just went through this process "building " my own tool kit with a "new" mbtext cover.  The wrenches are all ofer the map between the three manufacturers.  The Heyco were early, and the matador and dowidat were later, it would appear.  Somewhere at the end of the 230 production, the DIN spec changed, and the 14mm was changed to 13mm, so the old 14/17 became the 13/17.  I haven't seen a Heyco 13/17 anywhere.  If someone has a clear picture of what the wrench manufacturer's were by year, that would be fun to know.  Were the wrenches matching in the original tool kits?  I thin the Heyco's are better made than the matadors, but that is just my opinion.

Mike Mizesko
Columbus, OH

[66andBlue]

There is another remark in the technical manual that puzzles me: As you open the wrap, the inside material is green with the embossed Mercedes Benz star to the right.
I have a tool bag from a 1964 230SL in red MB-tex and one from a 1966 230SL made from softtop canvas but both do not have the Star logo. Do only the later bags (250SL/280SL) have the logo??
The combination pliers in the two bags are from different manufacturers, WILL and HAPEWE; see photo.

[Iconic]

Jonny B.
I think I bought the pliers you were looking at.  I bought a sedan tool kit years ago for around $50 so the SL only pliers although expensive rounded out a complete kit.

Actually Shvegel, if you mean the $95 pliers from Reply #1, I bought them. I know this because I had been in communication with Jonny B about them when I stole them out from under him. No, I am just kidding, of course.   He graciously stepped aside and allowed me to purchase them.
Of course, the seller might have a whole bunch of these unobtainium pliers that he just keeps putting up for sale as the last one sells.
By the way, that was my last piece to complete my toolkit. My car came with some of the tools, not all of them for some reason.
It sounds like mmizesko can beef up the Tech Manual on some tool topics.

[66andBlue]

... The Heyco were early, and the matador and dowidat were later, it would appear. ...
...  I haven't seen a Heyco 13/17 anywhere. ..

Hi Mike,
since you asked for a monkey wrench let me throw one in. 
Here is a photo of a Heyco 13/17 wrench: 
Matador, Dowidat and Heyco are old tool manufacturers and all are located in Remscheid, Germany.
Matador was started in 1900 by Schumacher & Kissling and is still run by a 4th generation Kissling.
Dowidat was started in 1919 by the Dowidat brothers and now the company is called GeDoRe (Gebrueder Dowidat Remscheid); still family owned.
Heyco was started in 1937 by Ernst Heynen and is also still private.

Since these companies competed fiercely I don't think that Daimler bought only from one of them but all three and what we see in the tool bags reflects what was on hand.

[mmizesko]

Alfred, 

Thanks for bursting my hypothesis bubble.  I find it interesting that guys on the line are just pulling miscellaneous manufacturer's wrenches out of a bin, and loading them into MBtex rolls.  BTW, I have seen some MBtex bags with the snaps that did have the star on the green fabric, and some that have not.  Seems so imprecise for a teutonic manufacturing process....

Mike

[mdsalemi]

Hi Mike,
since you asked for a monkey wrench let me throw one in.  
Matador, Dowidat and Heyco are old tool manufacturers and all are located in Remscheid, Germany.

Can I throw yet another monkey wrench in here? What about  "Unior"? I have as extras (not in my kit in the car) a Unior 17/19, and 14/17. DIN 895. These two, along with those I have marked Matador, Dowidat and Heyco all have the exact same cast-in embossing on the reverse (or is it obverse?) side: the wrench dimension, a three point star logo, Mercedes-Benz, and the other wrench dimension as JonnyB noted in the first reply. Except for the brand name, they look forged from the same tooling!

[mmizesko]

Hi Mike,

Now you've got me confused.  I've got 2 matadors without the three point star.  All the heycos have the star, and I also found a 13/17 mercedes Benz "Walter". 

Oh, the inhumanity!

Mike

[66andBlue]

... I find it interesting that guys on the line are just pulling miscellaneous manufacturer's wrenches out of a bin, and loading them into MBtex rolls. ....

Well, do we know this was the way they were added to a car? Perhaps the guy or gal on the line just added the complete bag but it was assembled somewhere els?
Today we would know for sure that Daimler does not make the bags, but back then? Who made the bags from canvas or MB-tex and to whom were they sold, Daimler or the tool manufacturer??  I don't think we'll ever find out.  

Except for the brand name, they look forged from the same tooling!

Michael, what do you think the DIN standard cast on every piece means? They should be identical except for the brand names.
But there is no way that these three companies in Remscheid shared any tooling.

[Shvegel]

Actually it is quite possible that the three tool companies shared tooling. Much like the Scotch distilleries on the isle of Isla who use the same supplier of Malted Barley(except of course Laphroig who still does some mostly for show.) I would assume that the three tool makers might use the same forging operation and only change the rear insert to suit the company who's name is on the order.

[66andBlue]

Fine, the distilleries get their malted barley from one supplier and the tool makers may get their steel from one supplier.
But those three companies had their own forge hammers from the beginning (http://www.matador.de/index.php?id=historie&L=2; http://www.gedore-group.com/en/group/chronicle.html;) and in 1961 the handtools for Heyco were made at their plant in Bavaria (http://www.heyco.de/_EN/geschichte.html) far away from the other two.

[hkollan]

Hi,

My thoughts regarding the tool bags and where and how they were made, has always been that they  took leftover materials at the upholstry
department and used them them to make the toolbags inbetween  the interiors and softtops.
 The original bags came in all kinds of colors from Tex and canvas.
A good way to reduce the waste of leftover materials from interior and softtop prouction.
Just a theory though.

Hans

[Garry]

Like you Hans, I had heard that they used the left over material from where the rear window is in the soft top as the outside and thus the bag was always the same colour as the soft top.

Garry

[mbzse]

.../...I also found a 13/17 mercedes Benz "Walter"

Heh, interesting. I found three 13/17 wrenches in my box of "M-B in-car tools". All of them were "Walter"
Of the about 50 other fixed wrenches I had there, none were marked "Walter"   /Hans in Sweden
.

[mdsalemi]

Michael, what do you think the DIN standard cast on every piece means? They should be identical except for the brand names.

I agree, sort of: I've seen DIN895 wrenches in satin chrome, phosphate finish, and black oxide. All VASTLY different in appearance. I believe that a DIN spec was material, performance, tolerance, finishe(s) (note the plural there) and related, which would mean that not every tool would be drop-dead identical in appearance, but in performance.

Of course DIN is "dead" replaced by international standards such as ISO and IEC for electrical standards. I have two different IEC 62196 standard plugs for my PEV electric cars. They both comply with that standard, and are very close in appearance. But nobody, surely nobody here would ever say that these two plugs were identical, nor made by the same manufacturer.

A quick check on the net and there are all manner of Indian and Chinese manufacturers of "DIN895" tools out there. I don't think they all are the "spitting image" of what we have in our trunks...

[Jonny B]

I don't think it would be possible to have the cut out from the top be the tool bag in the car that top was mounted to. I am guessing there was a stack of material, both top canvas or MB Tex, it would get sent to the "tool bag" department would would sew up the tool bags, then it would get filled with the requisite tools and there would be a stack ready to get tossed into the car at the end of the assembly line (or wherever the "insert tool bag to trunk" station was on the line). But that is not based on any kind of inside knowledge, just thinking about how an assembly process would be put together.

[69280sl]

I don't think it would be possible to have the cut out from the top be the tool bag in the car that top was mounted to.

Maybe 49er or someone else with an absolutely provenance d original car can help.

Is the bag the same as the softtop material?

Gus

[mmizesko]

I could be very wrong, but in all my hunting, I have yet to see one made of soft top material.  I've seen either vinyl mbtex (with snaps) or thin red or green fabric (in a roll with string ties), not of the thickness of a softop. 

This would be an awesome post for our friends at the pagodentreffen.de site.  Rolf-Dieter or Alfred, do you have passwords there?  I just registered, aber meine deutsch ist nur einfaches.  If not, i can try to cobble up a translated question, to gain some clarity on this whole tool kit issue.   I see vagueness on this site going back 12+ years. There may even be members on that site who used to work on the line, or their dads or uncles did.

Nicht so schlecht, eh?

Mike Mizesko