Author Topic: Firewall Pad: Original vs. New (Read 14379 times)

Ed Cave · « **on:** April 28, 2005, 19:39:58 »

A frame up restoration presents numerous decisions including many that share the topic, "Refurb the original part or replace with a new one". Of the many choices I had to make on my recent project, one that stands out in my mind as clearly the right choice was to refurbish the firewall pad rather than replace it with new, aftermarket material.

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to have original material that was capable of refurbishment. Encouraged by my restorer, we elected to salvage the original pad. It was carefully removed, the old backing scraped away, new backing pad was cut to fit and applied to the face 'skin', then a light coat of flat black spray paint finished it. Sure it took longer than replacing it with new material, but the visual result is very gratifying.

While my engine bay is by no means perfect, the opportunity to retain this very visual component was fortunate. All of this said to encourage those who may be entering a restoration to carefully assess the firewall pad and reuse it if you can. I believe it to be one of the small but significant successes of my recent project.

Download Attachment:

aftrmkt pad.jpg
63.43 KB

Download Attachment:

orig-pad.jpg
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Download Attachment:

orig-pad2.jpg
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Ed Cave
Atlanta, GA

1964 356C
1971 280SL
1973 911S
2002 SC430
2004 A4 3.0

Jonny B · « **Reply #1 on:** April 29, 2005, 05:37:56 »

Very nice job! It is indeed good that you were able to rescue the original pad. I like the look and texture, wonder why noone has duplicated it, or at least noone currently.

Jonny B
1967 250SL Auto

KevinC · « **Reply #2 on:** April 29, 2005, 07:46:03 »

Ed,

"...engine bay is by no means perfect"? If that's the case, I could never post pics of mine. This one looks fantastic!

-Kevin

Kevin
Boca Raton, FL
1967 230 SL Automatic
670 Light Ivory
113 Bronze/Brown MB Tex

Kenneth Gear · « **Reply #3 on:** April 29, 2005, 10:59:23 »

Wow, your car looks amazing. Congratulations.

One question, are you keeping the new style brake fluid reservoir or going with the original type? The only reason I ask is that I recently faced the decision as well and opted to go back to the orginal type.

Ken G
1971 280 SL
Silver/red

TheEngineer · « **Reply #4 on:** April 29, 2005, 11:21:19 »

Looks very nice indeed. I agree it was well worth the work of keeping it. Why is it that the original pad looks sooo much better?

Tom · « **Reply #5 on:** April 29, 2005, 13:22:27 »

Ed,

Very nice job on the restoration. You were very thoughtful on the firewall pad. Wish I had known that the original material was not available before I replaced my pad.

Best,

Tom

1971 280sl Tunis Beige Metallic (restored & enhanced)
1971 280sl Tobacco Brown (low mileage stock)
1970 280sl Deep Red (Project Car)

Bob G ✝︎ · « **Reply #6 on:** April 29, 2005, 15:06:18 »

Perhaps Tom Hanson who know works offically as parts manager for the daimler/ chrysler classic center will ecco our request to put the orginal diamond plate fire wall insulator back into production.

Bob Geco

hauser · « **Reply #7 on:** April 29, 2005, 23:12:57 »

Ed, the engine and its compartment look great! The only thing I see that's missing are the plastic clips that go along the ridge above the firewall pad. Outstanding job!

1969 280sl 5 spd
Gainesville, Fl.

hands_aus · « **Reply #8 on:** April 30, 2005, 06:22:35 »

Hey Ed,

Nice Job

I re-used one of your pics to ask a question?

Download Attachment:

WHAT IS THAT.JPG
61.47 KB

Bob Smith (Brisbane,Australia)
RHD,1967 early 250 SL, auto

mdsalemi · « **Reply #9 on:** April 30, 2005, 07:57:51 »

quote:
Originally posted by hands_aus

Hey Ed,

Nice Job

I re-used one of your pics to ask a question?

Download Attachment: WHAT IS THAT.JPG
61.47 KB

Bob Smith (Brisbane,Australia)
RHD,1967 early 250 SL, auto

Bob, if you are talking about that brass springy thing, I always assumed it was to maintain ground/electrical continuity with the bonnet closed?

Michael Salemi
1969 280SL
Signal Red w/Black Leather
Restored

Douglas · « **Reply #10 on:** April 30, 2005, 08:50:18 »

Ed,

The engine bay looks terrific. You want to make sure to cant the antenna back to an angle that's almost parallel to the windshield. That's one of those unwritten details that was taught to me by a retired elderly Becker dealer from back in the day. That's how they were instructed to do it.

Douglas Kim
New York, NY
280 SL #016220

Ed Cave · « **Reply #11 on:** April 30, 2005, 11:55:56 »

Ken:

With regard to the brake fluid reservoir, the car currently has a new one installed but I definately kept the old one as I saw that part in particular as one I might want to switch back to original at some point. Not unlike the firewall pad, the new reservoirs don't really match the original look so I've left myself with that option.

quote:
Originally posted by Kgear

Wow, your car looks amazing. Congratulations.

One question, are you keeping the new style brake fluid reservoir or going with the original type? The only reason I ask is that I recently faced the decision as well and opted to go back to the orginal type.

Ken G
1971 280 SL
Silver/red

Ed Cave
Atlanta, GA

1964 356C
1971 280SL
1973 911S
2002 SC430
2004 A4 3.0

TR · « **Reply #12 on:** April 30, 2005, 12:01:55 »

Good idea Bob. And if that happens I want to be in line to place an order.

Tom in Boise

quote:
Originally posted by krwaxbz

Perhaps Tom Hanson who know works offically as parts manager for the daimler/ chrysler classic center will ecco our request to put the orginal diamond plate fire wall insulator back into production.

Bob Geco

norton · « **Reply #13 on:** May 01, 2005, 05:56:20 »

Why would you need to "maintain ground/electrical continuity" with the hood? I think the springy thing is there to keep the hood from ratteling when closed and pop the hood open.

Mike Halleck
Chesterfield Mi
71 280SL
68 250SL (parts car)
94 E320 Coupe

hands_aus · « **Reply #14 on:** May 01, 2005, 05:57:22 »

Hey Michael,
Yeah the semi-circular copper/brass spring thing on the hood latch unit.
Were they on all Pagodas?
I don't have one on my car and I don't really see the need for one.
Is it to do with static electricity or radio interference?
How is it attached to the hood latch?

Bob Smith (Brisbane,Australia)
RHD,1967 early 250 SL, auto

mdsalemi · « **Reply #15 on:** May 01, 2005, 07:36:48 »

quote:
Originally posted by norton

Why would you need to "maintain ground/electrical continuity" with the hood? I think the springy thing is there to keep the hood from ratteling when closed and pop the hood open.

Mike Halleck
Chesterfield Mi
71 280SL
68 250SL (parts car)
94 E320 Coupe

Norton,

I didn't suggest why one would need to have this continuity, only that my experience with these things indicate that that's what it looks like. Unfinished spring brass is generally used for electrical continuity in moving parts. Why is a question for an engineer. If it were just springyness one was looking for there are better material choices then spring brass, but who knows? Most old American cars do have a spring in the same general area to pop the hood up and prevent rattles, but they are generally big steel springs. Maybe the aluminum in the hood only needs a gentle brass push? I guess the questions to ask everyone is who has it and who doesn't, and whose hood pops up and whose doesn't, and whose rattles and whose doesn't?

BTW, I DO have the piece; my hood does pop up with authority, and it does not rattle. Many other things may rattle, but not my hood!

Michael Salemi
1969 280SL
Signal Red w/Black Leather
Restored

ja17 · « **Reply #16 on:** May 01, 2005, 07:55:08 »

Hello,
Maybe these were installed on cars which came from the factory with optional radios? Mercedes installed "static ground straps" on the hoods of sedans of the era for this purpose. They prevented static electric interferance in the radios.

Joe Alexander
Blacklick, Ohio

Jonny B · « **Reply #17 on:** May 01, 2005, 08:21:20 »

I just checked mine and there is no brass springy thing (love these technical terms)and the hood pops open just fine.

Jonny B
1967 250SL Auto

norton · « **Reply #18 on:** May 01, 2005, 10:11:58 »

Right you are Joe, I was looking at the photo's and not my car when I answered. The springy thing could not have anything to do with rattels or popping the hood. Both my 71 and 68 have it, both came with radio's. The hood even has a matching peice to ground it, I'm dead wrong :?

Mike Halleck
Chesterfield Mi
71 280SL
68 250SL (parts car)
94 E320 Coupe

n/a · « **Reply #19 on:** May 01, 2005, 16:09:52 »

Looking under group member's hoods on the group has been an education for me as a new owner of a W113. A couple of questions have arisen. While on the subject of pads, Is there supposed to be a pad on the underside of the hood? If so, my car doesn't have one. Also, on the top of the oblong bowl shaped front spring towers, I have seen rubber covers on other members cars. I don't have them either. This "bowl" looks like it needs a cover, and it looks very un-Mercedes-Benz not to have one. Set me straight, gentlemen.

The good news is that my wife and I made our longest trip to date in our W113, a total of 130 km today on a Sunday afternoon drive. My car has sat for quite a while, and after the drive at highway speeds, it just seemed to come alive. It's a beautiful little car and to have it run really well is a definite plus!

Cheers

Jim Hunter. Ottawa Canada

quote:
Originally posted by Ed Cave

A frame up restoration presents numerous decisions including many that share the topic, "Refurb the original part or replace with a new one". Of the many choices I had to make on my recent project, one that stands out in my mind as clearly the right choice was to refurbish the firewall pad rather than replace it with new, aftermarket material.

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to have original material that was capable of refurbishment. Encouraged by my restorer, we elected to salvage the original pad. It was carefully removed, the old backing scraped away, new backing pad was cut to fit and applied to the face 'skin', then a light coat of flat black spray paint finished it. Sure it took longer than replacing it with new material, but the visual result is very gratifying.

While my engine bay is by no means perfect, the opportunity to retain this very visual component was fortunate. All of this said to encourage those who may be entering a restoration to carefully assess the firewall pad and reuse it if you can. I believe it to be one of the small but significant successes of my recent project.

Download Attachment: aftrmkt pad.jpg
63.43 KB

Download Attachment: orig-pad.jpg
44.53 KB

Download Attachment: orig-pad2.jpg
56.7 KB

Ed Cave
Atlanta, GA

1964 356C
1971 280SL
1973 911S
2002 SC430
2004 A4 3.0

JLHunter

hauser · « **Reply #20 on:** May 01, 2005, 20:29:27 »

I wonder how many hoods will be opened in saerch of the "brass springy thing."

Guilty!

Jim, no pad on the underside of the hood. As for the plastic oval shaped covers this item was discontinued at some point during production. My car has these covers so I would guess sometime after 1969.

1969 280sl 5 spd
Gainesville, Fl.

hands_aus · « **Reply #21 on:** May 02, 2005, 05:08:13 »

My car has a dealer installed Blaupunkt radio but definitely no spring-thing and no rattles.

The bonnet bounces up very energetically when the lever is pulled.

The underside of the bonnet was re-painted everywhere including the metal plate that spring-thing would make contact with.

Bob Smith (Brisbane,Australia)
RHD,1967 early 250 SL, auto

Vince Canepa · « **Reply #22 on:** May 02, 2005, 05:45:04 »

The contact spring is for radio suppression reasons. The area it contacts on the "striker" plate should be bare metal. It has nothing to do with opening the hood - it is too weak to perform such a purpose. The little spring loaded rod just forward of the hood latch proper is what raises the hood. It was part of every M-B hood latch until the W202 if I am not mistaken.

Vince Canepa
1967 250SL
113.043-10-001543
568H Signal Red
116 Caviar MB-Tex

Jonny B · « **Reply #23 on:** May 02, 2005, 06:03:02 »

I believe the rubber/plastic covers for the shock towers in the front only were used through sometime in the 250SL run. I do not have the reference materials infront of me, but I do not think any of the 280's came with those.

Jonny B
1967 250SL Auto

Douglas · « **Reply #24 on:** May 02, 2005, 06:46:58 »

I believe Johnny B is correct. The shock towers on a 280 SL shouldn't have the covers.

Vince is also correct about the radio suppression piece at the hood latch, however, I believe they were only seen on US-spec Pagodas.

Douglas Kim
New York, NY
280 SL #016220

News:

Author Topic: Firewall Pad: Original vs. New (Read 14379 times)

Ed Cave

KevinC

Bob G ✝︎

hauser

Douglas

Ed Cave

TR

norton

norton

n/a

hauser

Vince Canepa

Douglas