Hereiwth an update on my struggle against the German state motoring regulations and my attempts to get my '66 230SL on the road.
A canter thru the posts below will show that I've had to do quite a bit of structural work to the car: new drivers side floor, new mounts all round, rear shocks, exhaust work, etc. All that is now done. The final major task (we thought) we completed today: replacing the rubber bushes on the springs and the control arm bushings.
I read up a lot on how to get to the springs, both on this site and in the BBB and the Haynes Manual (or book of lies, as I heard it referred to recently). Some pointers follow in paragraphs that are easily ignored if you are not interested in this job:
Removal and refitting of rear springs and rubbers: First, make sure you get the right thickness rubber pads. All original springs are colour coded (See photo)
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This one is coded RED. I found the 4 yellow marks confusing - they are not part of the code that tells you which rubber pads you need. The RED code is important. WHen x-ref'd with the BBB it tells you what tickness pads your car was originally fitted with (related to things like the number of add extras it was built with such as AC, power steering, etc). The red mark was covered in crud and so I didn't find it until we'd removed the spring.
Removing the spring is simple if you use a spring compressor. (available in any tool store but get GOOD ONES - mine were 300mm which are really far too long, but they'd contain a nuclear blast and so were workable; I could have cut them down but to do so would have taken an age because of the grade of the metal). Stick the car on stands; release bottom of shock absorber; compress the side of the axel you want to work on; install compressors; lower jack; wrestle for 30 mins with spring and behold - you can now replace the rubbers. One of my bottom rubbers was totally gone and the other was in pieces; the top rubbers were in better visual condition but had become brittle and broke easily. Note that both top and bottom rubbers have an exact place in which they are seated. This is not a hard job provided you get smaller spring compressors - we made it more difficult that it needed to be.
Replaceing front spring rubbers: First, my spring compressors were too big to get into the spring, do we needed a different approach. After talking to several people and reading up on experiences here, we decided to remove the 4 bolts that secure the lower control arm and drop the arm under the springs pressure using a very good and large jack. NOTE: removing the front springs in this fashing is quite sporting, so take car. We did it on a good floor with lots of space and a large jack with the car on stands. It is perfectly workable if care is taken.
So: if required spray all bolts you intend to work on with duck oil or wd40 (duck oil is better as WD40 is hydroscopic) the day before and let the oil penetrate. Day 2: crack off all the bolts with the car on its wheels to avoid jerking the car around on stands. Jack the car, put on stands as shown at the back of the photos. Place the jack under the lower control arm (see photo below) and raise the jack until it starts to compress the spring (it will lift the car a little off the stands; if it lifts it a lot, adjust the jack positioning and try again):
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Note that the jack plate looks like it is barely on the arm - first, if you have a rubber block jack plate which has more grip, use it. HOwever, note that as you put the jack up and down, the amount of control arm in contact with the plate will change. However, in our case this was not a big problem because of the size of the jack - it was not about to fly out from under the car under the pressure of the spring - the same might not be said for smaller trolley jacks.
With the 4 bolts undone (we also did the control arm busing as well so you can see the new one half in place in the photo) gently lower the jack decompressing the spring.
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Out pops the spring, at which point you can change the rubber pads. Mine were OK, but brittle.
Getting the spring back in was more complex, but only because one has to align the lower control arm with the bolt holds. The wheel has a tendency to push outwards as you jack up the control arm, thus making it impossible to line up the bolt and hole. However, and again using a big back, it is possible to adjust the position of hte jack undre pressure and align the holes for the botls. I wouldn't be happy doing this with a small jack, however, as it could slip. Note that the wheel moves freely on its upper mount.
With the hols aligned, it's simply a case of putting the bolts back in. We then did the control arm bushing. There were very corroded and had to be cut off as the collar was 'welded' to the bolt over which it ran. Here is a photo of the new and old bushings together:
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If all of that sounds simple, it took about 8 hours to do. To do it again, less the cutting of bolts, would take half that time. The front springs are quite simple, although caution is required.
To pass the TUV I have also had to put in 3 point belts. Mdsalemi sent me his instructions - they are great. It was quite a simple job and they work fine. I will do a separate post about this as lots of people seem to be asking questions about it. I just need to take some photos.
I have replaced my rear shocks with koni adjustables (I wish I'd bought the ones for the front - too late now; will do that later).
I have fixed the clock using the excellent instructions on this site (my favourite job as I only sustained minor burns doing the soldering)
The floor panels are all in. The king pins have been repaired (badly but now rectified) and are now fine.
After all of this, the car has passed its TUV and I now have my license plates! Hooray!
I took the car on a celebratory drive to fill her up. It was about a 5 mile 'round trip and she ran well. However, there is a squeak from the rear wheel and the steering felt very light. On return, we checked the hubs for heat (back of hand against the wheel hub). Both front hubs were hot, so we will strip them down this week to see what lies beneath.
We also pulled off the wheels to check the brakes. I'll buy new front pads as they're on the limits. The rear shoes also need replacing, and we'll sort out the squeak then. If anyone has the part number for the rear shoes, please let me have it!!
The car has also had a compression test. According to the guy who did it, the engine should be dead. It came up to 7.something bar. I As soon as the brakes and wheels are done, I will take it out for a long, long drive and see if I can't burn off the carbon that may be causing the compression problem. We'll retest soon.
Since I've been working on the car (with very good help) I've decided that I was on a one way trip to over doing it. Having been to the Essen classic show this week in...Essen, Germany...and seen some of the cars there, I think some people remove all the character from their cars. This couldn't be more true of those muppets who take perfectly good classic cars and then put ABS, AMG engines and what have you inside them (someone had a thread about the company something 'tronik'- I saw their stand and their cars are just God awful). I think I like my car the way it is. There is lots more to do, but after almost 6 months it's on the road (has been on the road) and is legal. I still need a new upholstery and a new roof, but it can wait.
Thanks for all the help and advice from everyone. I hope to be able to start giving some back as I learn more about the car. I will post some photos of her on this page just as soon as I get the last brake jobs done.
