Off-topic: water drainage in coupe doors

[waqas]

As some of you may know, I have a '66 250SE coupe (my other mistress). I thought that since a lot of you know cars of this era quite well, you might be able to help me out. I can only long for a w-111 website as active and helpful as this.

I've been trying to figure out how the doors drain out when water enters them through the window slit. These coupes are 'pillar-less' (no B-pillar), and the side windows have no frame (similar to the pagoda). The pagoda doors have tiny slits directly underneath the doors (Naj has some excellent photos of the innards of a pagoda door, somewhere on this website), which should be cleaned out every now and then. The w-111 has a thick chrome strip under the door, but no visible drainage for any water.

Similarly, I'd like to know how the rear section (behind the doors) drains when water enters through those windows. I've seen many many cars with heavy rust in this area, and I'd hate to end up like them.

http://www.sl113.org/forums/uploaded/Waqas/200711816276_mercedes250se-coupe-side.jpg

Any help is mightily appreciated!

WAQAS in Austin, Texas

[J. Huber]

Sorry Waqas -- I can't help. But I do have a question and a comment...
Is the 250SE such as yours the ones that have the rear brake drums that interchange with the early 113? And,
Wow -- what a classy looking car!


James
63 230SL

[waqas]

quote:Originally posted by J. Huber

Sorry Waqas -- I can't help. But I do have a question and a comment...
Is the 250SE such as yours the ones that have the rear brake drums that interchange with the early 113? And,
Wow -- what a classy looking car!

James,

Thanks for the comments. The car you're referring to might be the 220SEb (the predecessor, which had drums in the rear). Although the axles are interchangeable, the drum brake components were slightly different (from what I've seen, but I may be wrong). The 250SE was made from '66 to '67 (although official '68-titled cars exist, MBZ had replaced it with the 280SE by '68), and sports 4-wheel discs. Personally, I find the w-111 coupes/convertables to be the pinnacle in automobile art, with the Pagoda a close second!  

Check out http://www.heckflosse.nl for some nifty information.

Meanwhile, anyone know how it drains ?

WAQAS in Austin, Texas

[Ben]

Hi Waqas, I love your car, super colour !

I also share your opinion that this is the most elegant Benz ever built, in fact I thinks it is the most elegant car of ANY make ever built !

I also prefer the look of the hard top Coupe to the cabriolet !

I have a '68 280SE Coupe and just this lunchtime was trying to cure a water leak into the car, I had to remove the window seals and the chrome strip, clean out the body caulk and seal it all up !

Hopefully it works !

Anyway I too am curious, I can't answer the question, as to where the water drains to as I believe I also have a little rust in the base of the rear 1/4's and I am sure its due to lack of drainage!

If anyone can share their experience I'd be grateful and hopefully we'lll someday have a decent W111 Coupe forum !

Regards,
Ben in Ireland.
'64 230SL 4sp.

[waltklatt]

Waqas,
Does the coupe have the similiar rubber seals around the door?  Like the W113, there are small indentations in the panel skin where it wraps around the bottom of the thick frame, and these allow the water and dirt to come out the bottom.  
Take a look there and see what might be there.  I remember the fintail wagon and the W108's had a similiar drain holes, well they are actually slots.
Walter
1967 220SL-diesel

[waqas]

Walter, the door rubber seals are very similar to the Pagoda, and these have all been replaced in the past couple years. They seem to have the indentation you speak of.

The seals at the base of the window (top of door) have also been replaced, but they seem to have a large gap for water to seep into the door itself. As Ben points out, of more concern is the corresponding part of the rear quarter section, where the rear side windows emerge from the quarter section. I'd like to ensure that water entering this section drains out properly.

Ben, thanks for sharing a pic of yours-- awesome colour combo!  As you can probebly tell, I've a thing for the colour green. My 230sl is moss metallic green (DB834), while the 250se coupe is dark green (DB268). Ironically, the original colour on the Pagoda was also dark green (DB268).

Thanks again for any information,

WAQAS in Austin, Texas

[glenn]

If I remember correctly  ??  ,  the doors have slots, 3 or so, in the bottom.  Visisble when you open the door.  I'll check mine.

[Benz Dr.]

 Why don't you guys just ask me? I work on ALL old benz cars, not just 113's. The only ones I haven't worked on yet are the 300S cars from the mid 50's.

After I became pretty good on 190SL's, I became really good on Coupes, before I became an expert on 1113's  ( lol ). I rarely work on Coupes any more but they're very similar to 113's so the progression was fairly easy. Each car has the same drive train but the dash and door equipment is very diiferent on Coupes and 113's.

There are holes in the bottom of the doors similar to 113's but they're shaped a bit differently. The coupe door has the alloy frame with a steel skin so unlike 113's you can re-skin the door if needed.

The rear drains are a bit different. The outer sill has 3 verticle grooves that run along the top of the outer sill and then down the outside to the botton edge. You can't see them because the chrome rocker cover hides them. The only way you can clean this area is to either remove the rocker cover ( not advisable ) or remove the rear panel at each side of the back seat. You will be able to look into the opening at the side and bottom of the widow and may be able to blow it out with compressed air. If you run water into this area it should drain out at the bottom of the rocker chrome along the last 12 - 16 inches before the rear wheel opening.   

[waqas]

Dan,

Thanks for the great information, as usual. Even though I started this thread over two years ago, I hadn't really gotten a good explanation until now.

I'll be sure to take a look behind those side panels once I'm done with putting back together the cooling and power steering systems that I have all apart.