1964 230SL restoration in UK

[RobSirg]

Hi Scott, not sure if this helps?

Car is factory two-tone. "Blue" over "Grey-Blue" (those Germans really knew how to create exciting names for colours).

Main body colour - Grey Blue, is metallic and takes on quite different shades in different light conditions.

Cheers

Rob

[Jonny B]

Very nice shots of the blue-gray car! What was the location in the bottom photo (car on the wood floor)? Looks like an interesting place.

[Scottcorvette]

Yes I think that is lovely. Is that 906G??

It is 387H that I was going to go for. I had my painter do me a colour chip in that and the dark red. Still time to change my mind though.

I have had a change of plan on mine and am going to strip the paint on mine before I remove the suspension and mount it on the dolly. I wanted to leave it painted so I don't have to worry about it being in bare metal for cleaning underneath. I had painted a few of the bare bits in bilt hamber hydrate 80, which I think is the same as hammerite kurust and the body got wet when we steamed it the other day. It hasn't affected those areas at all so I'll paint the whole car with that whilst it stands.

So tonight I started to tape up all the holes in the car, and put masking tape over all the shuts so stripper doesn't go everywhere. I'll be using langlow strip away pro. I use to use Nitromors but it has been made so safe to use now it is pretty ineffective, once the paint is stripped I'll wash the body work down with a scotchbrite pad soaked in thinners. It's a miserable and messy job but I think is the nicest way to strip.

I did think about acid dipping but I have reservations about it, I am nervous about the acid remaining in box sections and double skinned areas, also I don't want all the original undercoating to be removed. If the car had more rot I may have gone that way but most of it is so good it just seemed too invasive.

[Scottcorvette]

A couple of pictures of the dash with all the instruments out too, and one of the engine bay after steam cleaning, shows the blackout by the air filter nicely.

Also one of the floors. I was all set to replace them all but I think I may just try and do the few small areas as Andy suggested and keep as much original metal in there as possible, 90% of it is lovely it is just a few bits in the corners, the drivers one is toast though.

[KevinC]

Scott,

Just curious...does anyone use a system like this for stripping cars? They claim that they got their start stripping boats in England...

 http://www.farrowsystem.com/company/

Kevin

[RobSirg]

Yes Scott, that is 906G (the 387H is the hardtop and hubcaps)

Below are photo's of my project car before I stripped it down (just did that 2 weeks ago). These photos were given to me by the previous owner after it was resprayed. Colour is Dark Red (542G) the previous owner admitted it was resprayed in a more metallic colour. In the door inners I can see old paint against new paint. Original paint is non metallic and darker. I will be taking back to original. I will change the steering wheel colour to Ivory and tinted glass all around.
Photo's look pretty good but floors were partially rusted out - I will be having all floors and sills replaced. I will leave to my panel guy to decide how much original metal he will retain. Mine will be his 3rd Pagoda in a row - I've enjoyed watching his work on the other 2 quizzing him weekly along the way. Im setting aside a year for the work to be done - my cashflow wont allow it to go any faster

JohnnyB that last photo was taken at the Motorclassica Classic Car Show in Melbourne. The building is the Royal Exhibition Building  - beautiful old building built in 1880. Photo was taken before I had the interior done or the engine detailed. Was still presentable but far more worthy of an event now. I did enjoy hanging around the car when people were looking at it (not letting on that I was the owner). Most people admired the colour, which is what dragged me in (causing me to buy it off ebay in 2010 on a whim.....unseen other than some external photos!!!)

Rob

[Garry]

Rob,

Who is doing the work in Mlebourne for you?

Garry

[RobSirg]

Hi Garry,

I will be mainly using 3 small operators who are all within a block of each other in Richmond (Cremorne). I wouldn't say they are 113 specialists but most have worked on my other 280SL and they are all doing my friends 280SL at the moment (which I have been supervising). They are also very fair with their charges.The main benefit for me is they are close to each other and they are en-route to work for me so I can drop in on them to and from work - which i have been doing this past year. In that process, coupled with this forum, we have educated each other and saved a lot of money along the way. Eg: I personally pick up the aluminium and take it to Greg Wood who lives around the corner from me and he does a great job on the all the aluminum parts - at a very reasonable price.

Interior: BM Leather Creations (Richmond - just down from Gary Blackman)
Mechanical : Richmond Motors (Richmond)
Panelwork: Pro Panels (Richmond)
Engine Restoration: I will use Greg Wood for everything this time, not just Aluminium
Cad Plating: SEC Plating in NSW - ( if it works out well with my friend's car. ) - Due to get them back next week.

I will be visiting the USA for work next week and plan on taking my Injection Pump to be restored by Robert Fairchild (Jerry Fairchild Industries) - as recommended by this forum. My colleague can bring it back when he visits the USA next month.

My Interior guy (Bill) is well connected with other people to do things like Timber restoration, Instruments, Vinyl repairs, New Glass, etc.

Buying most parts from the usual suppliers and ebay. Too bad we don't live in the USA - Classic Mercedes there is about half the price of Mercedes in Australia.

Let me know if you need more information or have any handy suggestions for me.

Cheers

Rob

[Garry]

Thanks Rob,

I was interested in who else was doing mechanical and restoration work in Melbourne. At the moment I use two, one in South Melbourne(mechanical) and one in Boronia(restoration) both who are very slow and usually take a month or two to do work.   I hate to push so that probably doesn’t help.

As I keep the car at Hanging Rock, it means driving it to Melb and returning to pick it up.  A town house I have in Melb doesnt have any proper garage so it is not an option.

[RobSirg]

Yes I see.

I use Classique Motors (Joe), to maintain my blue 280SL. I think I will also take this one to him after restoration as I feel Joe has greater specialist knowledge on these cars. He's a nice guy too. He will take far too long to work on the restoration - seems short on space, and is out of my way.

Rob

[Garry]

Yes Joe is good for servicing but is oh so slow.  He has had my car for over two months to fix the Brake booster.  Hope to get it back tomorrow.

Garry

[batman]

Good luck Garry for tomorrow!

I am still waiting for Joe to finish on mine (almost there I am told)

However, I now have another problem regarding getting a roadworthy certificate.

cheers

[RobSirg]

Went through the same early this year when I had my brake booster rebuilt. Reckon he took 2 months then also. As much I would love to see your cars in the flesh I hope they aren't there when I drop off mine next week for a service

[Scottcorvette]

Kevin I'm not sure about the Farrow system. I have seen something similar used on boats and it looks pretty aggressive. Trouble with all that sort of thing I think is it is just so messy, at least with regular paint stripper it is easy to keep the car clean and tidy. Sandblasting makes a lot of mess which bothers me, but it is what it is.

I don't want to get the whole car media blasted as I'm nervous of the panels getting deformed, I saw a vw bus once that had been blasted and the shell was ruined. I guess like anything it is only as good as the one doing the job, and I am always nervous of how someone else would treat the car, it is also another reason I was reluctant to go for the dipping process as I have heard some horror stories, it may all be unfounded but I dont want to find out the hard way. Not only that, I haven't found anywhere local and all the big dipping firms are a long way from me, so it is all a bit of a rave. At least if I do the job myself then I can treat it right.

I'm hoping to start on the paint strip tomorrow night. I have refitted the hood and pretty much finished the masking. We have been stripping the paint off a 1959 Corvette in the booth so assuming we can get that finished tomorrow I can put the Mercedes I there and get cracking tomorrow night. Looking forward to seeing the car in bare metal.

[KevinC]

Scott,

Great feedback (and photos). On these blasting systems, I understand that because they utilize water in the blast, there is not near as much (if any) dust like with a sandblaster. Plus the water brings the surface temp down as opposed to raising it with the dry blaster. I have seen this one demonstrated in the US and you can actually "dial down" the percentage of abrasive (crushed glass) vs water and air volume. Any way, I thought if it worked on fiberglass boats, it could work on cars.

None the less. Your progress photos are great....keep them coming!

Kevin

[Scottcorvette]

I sent a couple of small parts to the sandblasters with some Corvette parts the other day, amongst which were the exhaust manifolds. When they came back I gave them a good blow out and spent a relaxing hour in my garage treating them with calyx manifold dressing. I was going to get them treated by Zircotek but I have read a few reports of the coating coming off. This is what we use on Corvette manifolds and whilst it will need freshening up every couple of years it looks really good.

In the photos it looks black for some reason, but it is actually only slightly darker than the sandblasted finish, a real nice dull grey, just like raw cast iron. The first picture is of the raw sandblasted finish.

[Scottcorvette]

Had a very busy day yesterday. I have been trying to get the Mercedes in to the paint booth for a couple of days now but the corvette in there has taken forever to strip. I cleared it out of there yesterday morning and got to work, I wanted to get as much done as possible knowing it would have to come out Monday morning as I have a couple of engines to paint. I had done all the masking already so all that had to be done was cover the wheels and lay some card on the floor to catch all the muck.

[Scottcorvette]

And 10 very hard hours later it was all gone....

I have never had a car so easy to strip. within a few minutes of the stripper going on the paint was bubbling up and ready to scrape off. All in all each panel took around 3 separate treatments, the doors and trunk lid took 6 or 7 coats as there was some filler in them. I guess that is to be expected on aluminium panels, there are a couple of car parking dents in the doors and I think maybe someone opened the trunk against something or sat on it. Other than that it was all pretty straight forward. I have a pretty efficient method when it comes to this sort of work though, I am constantly putting stripper on different areas whilst I am scraping so there is no lost time waiting for stripper to go off.

These pictures are after the whole car has been scrubbed down with scothbrite pads soaked in thinners. The first wash gets rid of all the traces of primer, and neutralizes the stripper, then another one to make sure, and then a third quick washover to get all the panels clean. It's a pretty heady experience!

[Scottcorvette]

I'm really pleased with the condition of the body, rust free would have been better of course, but there were no more nasties found so that is a good thing. The only unexpected was a previous repair under the RH headlight where the bumper goes. So it is all good news. It is pretty much what I suspected when I bought the car, but there is always the fear of what lies beneath.

This was going to be the decider as to whether I carry on with the project or move it on to someone with deeper pockets than mine, so this is good news.

Next stage is to remove the bonnet, boot, and doors, remove the front and rear suspension and get the sandblasters out here. I will get them to do the dash and inside the car, in the engine compartment and the trunk floor. I will keep the blasting underneath localised to the areas that need repair or that have no undercoating on them. I would like to keep as much of the original undercoating intact.

[Scottcorvette]

And so that is it. I'll put some masking tape over the rusty areas on the body where I want the sandblasters to spot, and then I'll paint the whole car with Kurust so it doesn't go brown whilst I am working on it.

As an aside, when I have had some kurust on the go in the workshop I have been painting it on some of the rusty spots on the car, there was an are on top of the right hand fender that had been dented and had gone brown. When I thinner washed the car and scrubbed the kurust off the rust on the fender had pretty much gone, so it does work!

[andyburns]

Scott amazing effort in a 10 hour period.  Fantastic!  Why did you strip it in the booth rather than out in the car park as a matter of interest. 

The car looks really really good.  I think you have dodged a big bullet.  As you say if it was much worse you would be into some serious time and money. 

I also like your philosophy of keeping all the factory under seal intact.  I took the same approach and had a few little patch ups that are a bit of extra time and effort are now almost indistinguishable from the factory material. 

Have you removed all the factory sound deadening material from inside the car?   I found most of my rust sign from the inside of the car under the tar mat.

Awesome progress!!

[Scottcorvette]

Thanks Andy. It was a long day, my hands were like claws when I got in last night and all I can smell is thinners...

We always strip indoors, it is too cold/damp/dark here most of the time to do much outdoors, this is where I am fortunate to have the workshop facility so I can do all this indoors, although 8 hours in to this job I was wishing I had worked harder at school and was able to pay someone else to do this...

All of the sound deadener has been removed and the metal is all excellent there, same as in the cowl under the fresh air vent. I expected there to be some rust as there was some sort of nest in there, but it is all like brand new, same behind the kick panels, rockers etc.

My wife has a 71 Karmann Ghia and when we bought that I had a local sheet metal guy replace the outer sills, what he didn't mention id that the heater channels were rotten and put the new sills straight over. I spent most of this summer redoing his work, and also replacing the heater channels, the time this all takes is massive so I am pretty lucky to have gotten away with just this on the Mercedes I think.

[Jonny B]

Curious as to why you want to keep the undercoating intact? This was not the best feature for these cars, and could trap moisture. Is this the undercoating (schutz) in the wheel wells and under and around the tank?

[Scottcorvette]

I don't really know why. I just thought it might be nice to keep as much of the original as possible. It also seemed to be important to marque experts that as many original features as possible are retained. Almost every buyers guide I read, albeit after the event, made much of a car having the original front fenders, spot welds etc, and that all body numbers match. I don't see it as any different with something like this. That being said I am thinking of a colour change, but I think if it is done right that shouldn't really affect the cars integrity or value.

I guess a lot of it depends on what I find after the suspension is removed and the underside is cleaned and inspected. If I wind up replacing all the floor pans then there won't be much of the original left, in which case I will scrape it all off so that it all matches, if there looks to be any issues there then again I'll remove it all and start again, but if it all looks perfect then I don't really see the point in disturbing it and making extra work for myself.

I think really I need to play it by ear on this one, the intention at the moment is to leave it be, but that can change in a heartbeat, it was never my intention to replace the fuel tank but it turns out I'm going to have to, nature of the beast with old cars I guess.

I don't know, maybe I am being a bit silly about it and the right thing to do is to get it all off and see what is there. Watch this space!

[andyburns]

Scott, did you check in the box section in the left and right hand foot well directly in front of the A pillars.  They are a nasty hidden rust trap that deteriorate quickly if the rubber seals around the two removable front wheel arch panels are shot.  If the are rusty the only access is by taking off the front guard, or part off it.

Jonny,  all the underseal that I have ground off where there was a) either no sign of the underseal peeling or b) no sign of rust from the other side of the metal, typically the metal underneath has seemed to be in perfect condition.  If its lasted 50 years in this state why would you upset it risking introducing an inferior finish.  Opening steel to the atmosphere is a very risky thing if you don't know exactly what your doing.   Not only that you are removing an original factory feature.

The underseal is no longer available I believe.  I had to improvise and used dozens of layers of paintable hard chip coat.  

One of my favorites is seeing people blast the entire shell.  From the factory all the bare steel was treated with some sort of bare steel rust inhibitor that left a layer of protective zinc.  If you hand strip you will see it clearly.  The steel looks quite dark and dull.  If it isn't replaced its just another missing barrier.  Arguably the most important one?

Also agree with Scott that getting your car acid stripped could cause all sort of heinous issues in years to come with rust in crucial areas you cant get too.  Seams and box sections spring to mind.