mu-mu-mu-my pagoda

[France]

Rodd or someone,

This thread with a fun name has a lot of diverse useful info, but its nondescriptive subject line makes it useless in a search for any of its topics.  Can we take it apart and file the parts under appropriate places in the Manual?  Good idea? Bad idea?

Trice
1968 280SL US, signal red/bl leather, auto, kinder seat
Sarasota FL; Alsace France; Switzerland
You only need 2 tools in life: WD40 to make things go, and duct tape to make them stop.

[rwmastel]

Trice,

First, the search engine does search the body of the thread.  Optionally, the thread title only.

Second, I guess I could (anyone could) copy/paste particular posts and use them to start new threads on specific topics.  I'm not sure how much point there is to that, but if you or anyone find it useful then go for it.  If you want to get really detailed and orgainzed, find old threads that these points of interest will fit into and update those threads with this new info!  For example, the home made tools to grease the wiper mechanisim might fit into another thread on home made or special tools, or wiper problems, if those threads exist.

Third, yes, this is great info for the manual.  I'm sure the people who write/build that will find these types of information using the search tool.

Rodd
Powell, Ohio, USA
1966 230SL, Euro, Auto, Leather, both  tops
1994 E420

[al_lieffring]

quote:Originally posted by France

Rodd or someone,

This thread with a fun name has a lot of diverse useful info, but its nondescriptive subject line makes it useless in a search for any of its topics.  Can we take it apart and file the parts under appropriate places in the Manual?  Good idea? Bad idea?

Trice
1968 280SL US, signal red/bl leather, auto, kinder seat
Sarasota FL; Alsace France; Switzerland
You only need 2 tools in life: WD40 to make things go, and duct tape to make them stop.

Hey Ya'll

Do I owe someone an apology or something?

This thread has a fun name because that is what it is supposed to be, fun. I am posting here because I enjoy sharing the things I am coming across as this project progresses and the things I am rediscovering after the nearly 20 years since I have last driven this car.
I have never been anything other than a semi-literate grunt laborer, so my format is an unstructured progression of what I have been doing for the past couple of months, and I will continue in the same fashion till the members of this forum are sick of hearing from me and beg me to stop.

I'm just having fun posting my project's progress here and I hope that someone else is enjoying reading through them too.

Al :O)
 




113-042-10-014715
built 11 Jan 66
904/396 blue, Ivory Tex
condition- rust bucket

[France]

Oh Al, don't get me wrong--I love your posting and its title; I still hear that song on the radio. It's just that when you're trying to fix something on the car, and you do a "search" to see all the threads that address the particular problem at hand, the subject line is often helpful in narrowing down the topic, that's all. But Rodd is right--the engine finds the search words in the body of the thread too. I look forward to your continued posting--I would never beg you to stop!  It's obvious from the flames next to this topic that we all enjoy your input.

Trice
1968 280SL US, signal red/bl leather, auto, kinder seat
Sarasota FL; Alsace France; Switzerland
You only need 2 tools in life: WD40 to make things go, and duct tape to make them stop.

[Naj ✝︎]

Al,
Just so you know,
I religiously follow your threads and take your advice seriously....
+ its fun reading  
Long may you continue.
naj

68 280SL

[J. Huber]

I'd like to say that one of the greatest things about this site are the personalities that come along with the posts. Unlike some anonymous information resource where you just find facts, we have a "family" here -- with a variety of writing styles and ways of communicating stuff about our beloved cars.

My point is, when I see a post by this person or that person, I am (usually -- ok. always) anxious to open it up and see what they have to say. And taking it to another level, there are even specific posts that do the same thing for me. "How often we spot a Pagoda" is always fun, and in the case of "Mu-Mu-Mu-My Pagoda", I quickly tune-in to see Al's progress. It helps that I am so addicted to this place that I never miss a post....

However, I can see Trice's point as well. It is always useful to have a descriptive word(s) in the title, since some folks choose to browse the titles instead of searching via keywords. I face a similar thing all the time here in my library. The catchy title can make me buy the book -- the descriptors (or "key words") help me find it later on.



James
63 230SL

[PnHi]

AL
I just wish you would work a little faster!  

[al_lieffring]

quote:Originally posted by PnHi

AL
I just wish you would work a little faster!  

That was what my father always said.

This week I have been spending most of my time working on clocks for customers, for the first time in months I have repair business to do. And when I have been finishing one and return it to the customer they will have another one waiting that they want repaired too.

This morning the PerTronics kit arrived from Summit Racing. I deciced that the ca. 1885 Ansonia mantle clock with the cast iron case, sitting disassembled on the work bench, could wait another hour or so.

The ignition kit didn't come with much in the way of directions, but it isn't that complicated either, basicly remove the points, install the Hall effect sensor, route the 2 wires through the distributor so that the wires won't pinch when the vacuuim moves the breaker plate, install the magnet, connect the red wire to Ign. +12v and the black wire to the - side of the coil. Then start it up and reset the timing. I removed the distributor to make things easier, but it realy wasn't necessary. Getting the magnet aligned with the cam and getting it to seat in fully took a couple of tries to get it right and the metal tab that holds the vacuuim advance pin to the breaker plate needed to have a small corner ground away to make clearance for the magnet.
I decided to also change the coil to the PerTronics Flame Thrower 40kv coil that is designed to work with the system. Because there are so many variations on coil designs, I felt it would be best to use thier coil and avoid possible compatibility problems.
I chose the oil filled coil with the 1.5ohm primary windings, that way I could keep the balast and the bypass circuit I installed from the starter solenoid to the resistor. Installed this way there will be a higher reserve spark voltage when starting.
Oh yeah, I got the chrome too! I'm a hot rodder at heart, and as they say "If it don't go faster, CHROME IT". I don't know about going faster, but it sure runs better at cold start, Now it doesn't pop back at throttle tip in right after starting, I can't remember it ever not doing that. I'll try running the fuel rack set the way it is for now, but it seems it could be leaned out quite a bit more.

Maybe I'll have time to weld in the right side floor boards Saturday, and be able to drive it around on Sunday. It should be cool but sunny, sounds perfect to me.

Ya'll have fun now. Hear?  
Al  :O)

 



113-042-10-014715
built 11 Jan 66
904/396 blue, Ivory Tex
condition- rust bucket

[al_lieffring]

Hey Ya'll

I was able to get some welding done yesterday on the right side floor pan. I took some pics as I was doing the work. Repairs like this these are kind of like buying sausages, sometimes you'r better off not knowing what might be in there. I don't think I signed a full disclosure agreement, but here's how it goes any way.

I started out by laying a piece of anlge steel along the outside edge of the floor at the frame rail to add a structural element to hold the floor and also get some clean steel to weld to.
Download Attachment: angle R floor.jpg
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And then welded the angle in place to any remaining clean steel that I could get to take a weld.
Download Attachment: angle welded.jpg
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I then cut a piece of steel to run the full length of the floor and broke it at an angle so it extended up another 2 inches over the firewall pannel. I cut the width to align up with the spotwelds of the forward frame horns along the inside edge. Because it was a double thickness of steel it was still fairly soild and also covered most of the floor area.
Download Attachment: floor pan welded.jpg
52.64 KB

This left a small hole between the frame horns and the exaust heat shield below.
Download Attachment: hole above ex..jpg
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The floor here is a compound curve so I roughly formed the steel to match the curve with a ball peen hammer over a steel strap I had clamped in my vise.
Download Attachment: compound curve.jpg
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Then I trimmed the piece to fit
Download Attachment: Trim to fit.jpg
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To weld the piece in place I first tack welded the corners and then small sections at a time, tapping the pannel into place - as I welded - with a ball peen hammer to make the piece lay flat against the floor.
Download Attachment: compound welded.jpg
55.18 KB

There were also holes in the box frame forward of the door that needed to be patched too.
Download Attachment: frame patch.jpg
53.65 KB

So that is where I am on Project Pagoda this evening. I still need to do some grinding to knock down the welds. The quality of my welding corresponds with the discomfort I experienced while getting into a position to make the weld. Along the open sections of the floor, nice clean welds, up under the dash where I was hanging upside down while trying to hold the welding visor with my left hand, the welds look like fuzzy catapilars. A little more grinding and it will be good enough. It is all going to be under an inch of jute padding and carpet, eventualy.

Ya'll have fun now. Hear?
   Al  



113-042-10-014715
built 11 Jan 66
904/396 blue, Ivory Tex
condition- rust bucket

[Cees Klumper]

Another nice blow-by-blow ...

Rodd - would it be an idea to feature this restoration project in (successive issues of) Pagoda World?

Cees ("Case") Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic

[J. Huber]

Very nice. It almost makes my floor project look do-able. (not by me of course...) A question though. Instead of the patching as Al has done -- would another option be to weld a whole new piece from K&K? How much harder would that be?

James
63 230SL

[al_lieffring]

quote:Originally posted by J. Huber

Very nice. It almost makes my floor project look do-able. (not by me of course...) A question though. Instead of the patching as Al has done -- would another option be to weld a whole new piece from K&K? How much harder would that be?

James
63 230SL

It would depend on what condition the pannels adjacent to the floor pan of your car are in. I chose this route because they were not in any better shape than the floor and patching seemed like the better way to go. So it wasn't realy an issue of easier or harder. It could in another situation be easier to install the pre-formed floor pannel.

Al

113-042-10-014715
built 11 Jan 66
904/396 blue, Ivory Tex
condition- rust bucket

[perry113]

Nice job and effort tackling your floor boards. I respect when car buffs decide to face the music and get their hands dirty to get their car to the next level.

Cheers
Peter Perry

[bsimaz]

Al,  Great job.  Looks like a lot of the work I did.  And may I say, it is well worth it.  Keep up the good work.


Bill Simaz
'66 230sl
Back on the Road

[Patrick]

Al, I am impressed with your capabilities. Although my floors are not in that shape yet, it's only a matter of time and I don't think I'm the only one in that boat.
I like Cees's idea of capturing all your hard earned knowledge in some format for future reference for all of us.
Rodd, if your reading, email me if I can assist with this.

Patrick
'68 250SL

[rhersberger]

Al, like others, I am very impressed with your abilities. However, I don't know whether to admire you or pity you for all work still ahead!  Good luck with this life time project.


Rod Hersberger

Santa Barbara

'68 280 SL, red, tan, 4sp, two tops
'01 Jag S Type brg
'07 Cayman S Carmona red, sand beige

[al_lieffring]

Hey Ya’ll

This morning I drove the Pagoda to church. Now that I have something more than a floor mat between my feet and the road I will be driving it around to run errands and the like. That way I can get enough miles on the motor to drain out the non-detergent break in oil. I just reinstalled the basics on the interior, bolted in the seats. I spent a day making a pair of seatbelts out a pile of odds and ends from old Kangol belts that I had removed from sedans that I parted out years ago. They were all stiff as a board and the first thing I had to do was soak them in a tub of soapy water overnight to get the crud out and make them pliable again. I found enough pieces in fairly good shape to make up a set of useable belts. I even had the plastic bolt covers for the two visible ends on each belt and a pair of spring wound belt retractors that clip onto the belts.
The other thing I needed to do to make the car drivable was to put the glass, regulator and door latch linkage back in the left door. The metal guides were gone off the glass, but I have a bucket of old ones that I had saved over the years from broken windows that I replaced on customer cars. I am sure there are many threads on putting these on with as many different sure fire ways to make them stay. I use Waterfowl Adhesive (duct tape). Seriously, I clean off the old tar adhesive with a razor blade, and then put on several layers of tape wrapped around the edge of the glass until there is enough thickness of material that the guide can be driven into place with a plastic hammer and stay in place. It took four layers of the tape I was using; it can vary by the brand used. Once I got the glass and regulator in I started to assemble the door latch and control rods. For as long as I have owned the car the return spring on the drivers door pull has been broken. I figured that now would be as good a time as any to see if there was a way to make it work again. This must be a fairly common problem because I have another set of door latches in the same condition. The problem is a broken torsion spring that is under the release lever. It is riveted in place. And I didn’t want to drill out the rivet that the levers pivot on. I found I could wind the spring out around the lever in a manner similar to removing a key from a key-ring. To make the new spring I used a coil spring of similar wire gage and diameter, and cut off two loops of the coil then used the two broken pieces of the spring for a pattern and bent the ends of the new spring to match. Then I wound it back over the lever and hooked the ends in place. The new spring has slightly less tension than the original, but I don’t have to push the lever back for the door to close any more. With that accomplished I thought it would just be a simple matter of selecting the correct linkage rods from the dozen or so assorted linkage rods that I had saved over the years, none of them seemed to fit. I finally had to take apart off the right side door panel to see what was on that side. I found that I had installed the chrome locking lever from a 220SEC and I had forgotten about the toggle and spring linkage that goes on the latch for the pull handle linkage. I found all the pieces for these and had to do some welding to put them back into shape. I had planned on spending about an hour or so to hang on the left door, it ended up taking up most of the day.
The right side door I wasn’t going to bother with the window guides and all that, I was just going to put back the door panel and bolt the outside handle back on. But I discovered that the boss where the handle’s screw attaches to the door jamb had been broken away and was still attached to the handle. I went to the hardware store and bought a 1/8 x 1” aluminum strap and cut a piece off about 2” long. I ground away an 1/8” of the material from inside the door and pop riveted it into place, then drilled a hole through it for the handle’s screw to go through. When I take the door apart for repainting, I will use aluminum solder instead of rivets but it will work for now.
I took the car out for a Saturday evening ride around the Athens perimeter. The car was running great, but about a half hour into the drive I noticed that I would think that every piece of gravel on the road that I ran over I thought might be an engine miss or something falling off or breaking. I decided to just take a deep breath relax, If something did break I had a cell phone and could get a ride home. And like my father used to tell me, “If the engine blows, you’ll just have to fix it again” Nothing did break and I was able to relax and just enjoy the ride.

Al
     


66 230sl
113-042-10-014715
904/396 blue, Ivory Tex
condition: not-as-rusty-as-before-bucket

[al_lieffring]

Hey Ya'll

I have been driving the Pagoda around for the last week when ever I get the chance, have gotten about 400 miles on the motor rebuild so far.

No major problems, but a few observations of things I will need to look into later.

The first thing that came to my attention is the speedometer readings, as I have posted in a different thread the rpm readings at highway speeds seemed to be much higher than I remembered. My recallection was that the speedo (MPH) should double the tach/100.
It seems there were so many different axle ratios through the production of these cars that I had to crawl under the axle last night, scrape off the grease and find my axle ratio.
The axle is stamped "SL 4.08" a much, much longer gear than I expected to find. I took a tire measurement and plugged in the info and came up with 54.1 MPH at 3000 RPM.
To check the tach readings I bought a new dwell/tach/multi meter, My old Snap-On meter would hunt up and down the scale in such a wide range that it doesn't give results that are useful any more. I don't think that anyone makes an analog dwell/tach any more, everything seems to be digital now.

I hooked the meter up to check the mechanical tach. Even though by my ear the motor's revs sounded like they were maching the tach, I wanted to check for sure, and in fact they do match up. But the tach still needs to come back out because it and/or the cable are squealing at over 4000 revs.

So my speedo is reading about 5mph below the actual speed, I just need to get used to the higher revs of a car this age. The 3.12 axle with an overdrive trans in my Astro van has made me used to much lower revs when out on the road.

My first night drive last week revealed that the headlights were cross eyed, I had to line them up on the garage door when I got home.
I back up about 20 feet from the door and line them up dead ahead with the high beams on, While I was at it I also lined up the fog lights.

I have noticed there is more freeplay in the steering column than there was right after the alignment, I will have to look and see if there are rubber bushings on the flex joint that have broken down and falling apart, all the other rubber parts have so I imagine these are not much better.
 
The more I drive the car the better the injection pump seems to be working, The mixture seems a bit richer now, the plungers and check valves must be seating in and delivering more fuel per stroke than before.

When the heat is on, after the heater core warms up the blower fan starts rubbing on the housing, Most cars have the fan on the cold air side but these cars draw hot air through the fan and it seems mine is expanding enough when warm to make contact with the case. The heat controlls will all be coming out to paint the dash pannel so I will adjust the squirrel cages then.

There is a drip under the pinion seal, I will have to replace that too, I may take the axle out along with the fuel tank when I am patching up the rear frame rails. That will give me more room to work under there.

My order from SLS is still languishing in US Customs, not sure if it was worth the bother, especialy now that I learned that most of the tin parts are made here in the US.

Good thing I'm not doing this to make money. I will just need to keep repeating, I love my Pagoda, I love my Pagoda, I lo.......

Al    :mrgreen:  

 
 



66 230sl
113-042-10-014715
904/396 blue, Ivory Tex
condition: not-as-rusty-as-before-bucket

[Naj ✝︎]

Al,
 

quote:I have noticed there is more freeplay in the steering column than there was right after the alignment, I will have to look and see if there are rubber bushings on the flex joint that have broken down and falling apart, all the other rubber parts have so I imagine these are not much better.

There are 2 white bushings column to box coupling on the 230 SL. Later cars have a UJ

 

quote:The more I drive the car the better the injection pump seems to be working, The mixture seems a bit richer now, the plungers and check valves must be seating in and delivering more fuel per stroke than before.

Do you ever add any oil to the fuel?

naj

68 280SL

[rwmastel]

quote:Originally posted by al_lieffring

I had to crawl under the axle last night, scrape off the grease and find my axle ratio. The axle is stamped "SL 4.08" a much, much longer gear than I expected to find.

Weren't the USA 280SL cars the only ones (except maybe the 5-speed manual cars) that had the 4.08 ratio?  Do you have disk brakes in the rear?

quote:My first night drive last week revealed that the headlights were cross eyed, I had to line them up on the garage door when I got home. I back up about 20 feet from the door and line them up dead ahead with the high beams on, While I was at it I also lined up the fog lights.

There is a documented procedure for accurate light alignment, if you want to get particular.  Look in the MB shop manual or Haynes.

quote:I have noticed there is more freeplay in the steering column than there was right after the alignment, I will have to look and see if there are rubber bushings on the flex joint that have broken down and falling apart, all the other rubber parts have so I imagine these are not much better.

Yes, at the cupling of the steering column to the steering box.  Mine were shot (one was actually gone!).

Rodd
Powell, Ohio, USA
1966 230SL, Euro, Auto, Leather, both  tops
1994 E420

[al_lieffring]

quote:Originally posted by rwmastel

quote:Originally posted by al_lieffring

I had to crawl under the axle last night, scrape off the grease and find my axle ratio. The axle is stamped "SL 4.08" a much, much longer gear than I expected to find.

Weren't the USA 280SL cars the only ones (except maybe the 5-speed manual cars) that had the 4.08 ratio?  Do you have disk brakes in the rear?

Rodd

Rodd

There are drum brakes in the rear and I have never seen anything to indicate that the axle has ever been changed, The SL stamp would seem to indicate that the axle isn't from a sedan,I think the 110 & 111 sedans had narrower drums w/o fins. As I said I was surprized to find this axle.

66 230sl
113-042-10-014715
904/396 blue, Ivory Tex
condition: not-as-rusty-as-before-bucket

[al_lieffring]

Hey to all

I finally got 500miles on my engine rebuild so I changed out the non-detergent break in oil and filter, re-torqued the head bolts and after the engine cooled overnight, re-adjusted the valves.

I decided that I would try some experiments with the starting solenoids because I have been having hot start problems.
 To get the motor to start hot I would need to hold the throttle wide open, and then only after a long crank would it take off.
For some reason I thought the injector lines were draining back and I needed to get more fuel from the rack.  So I tried connecting the solenoid on the injection pump directly to the starter. That made it even worse. I was in fact getting too much fuel on hot start.
After disconnecting the pump solenoid wire I tried unplugging the 1 second switch (the round can between the cold start relay and the wiper relay). After that it would start instantly without touching the throttle. A check with a test lamp at the #7 injector showed that the timer had become a 3 second switch.  Now I have to reconnect the pump solenoid back to the original circuit (Parallel to the #7 injector), and I will leave the “extra second” switch unplugged, I may try later on to take it apart and recalibrate it by bending the bi-metallic contacts till it only stays on for only 1 second and try it again. But with it unplugged the car hot starts better than it ever did 25 years ago.

I finally received my front fender patch panels, ¾ rear fender panels, rear frame dog-legs and a left rocker panel cover. But I am having so much fun running around with the car in “bomber” condition that I am reluctant to start into the body work just yet; knowing that once I start it will be months before I will get to drive it again.

Nick and I spent yesterday afternoon running around town trying to do errands. We didn’t get anything done but it really didn’t matter because were driving the SL. This afternoon we will work on teaching Nick to drive a stick shift.
Just for this reason I installed a second hand clutch disc instead of a new one. There isn’t any need to put in a fresh new one until after he burns up the clutch learning to drive.

Later


66 230sl
113-042-10-014715
904/396 blue, Ivory Tex
condition: not-as-rusty-as-before-bucket

[al_lieffring]

After I reconnected the solenoid on the injection pump. I took the car around to warm up the engine so I could see how it would hot start.
As I was driving, what yesterday started out as a little stumble at 2500 rpm became more constant, by the time I got home I was running full throttle just to pull up a hill.
As I suspected the fuel filter was completly plugged up and the filter housing had a 1/2 inch of rusty silt down in the bottom.

I cut apart the filter and found that it had two layers of thick felt for the filter media instead of corregated paper.

Because this is how I rembered diesel filters were constructed I checked the Hengst number at thier web site and sure enough it is listed as a diesel filter.

While I appreciate the fact that all of this trapped crud was kept out of my injection system, I need something that will last for more than 500 miles between changes.

Are the paper (gasoline) fuel filters still available, from the aftermarket or from MBZ?  Was this just a bad substitution by the parts house? or are only the felt (diesel) filters available now?





66 230sl
113-042-10-014715
904/396 blue, Ivory Tex
condition: not-as-rusty-as-before-bucket

[ja17]

Hello Al,

Yes these original fuel filters are still easily available. the last batch I got from the dealer for less than $10.00 ea.  (Cheap insurance compared to new injectors or an injection pump!!) Mercedes is now supplying a Bosch made in Spain filter,  Bosch #1 457 431 261  or Mercedes # 000 477 6415  The diesel filters are quite a bit similar in size and fit as you noticed.  

You may have to re-clean the intake screen of your electric fuel pump and fuel tank at some point.


Joe Alexander
Blacklick, Ohio

[hands_aus]

quote:Originally posted by al_lieffring


 A check with a test lamp at the #7 injector showed that the timer had become a 3 second switch.  Now I have to reconnect the pump solenoid back to the original circuit (Parallel to the #7 injector), and I will leave the “extra second” switch unplugged, I may try later on to take it apart and recalibrate it by bending the bi-metallic contacts till it only stays on for only 1 second and try it again. But with it unplugged the car hot starts better than it ever did 25 years ago.

Hey Al
There is an adjusting screw see this thread
http://index.php?topic=3395,second,relay

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