http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=6330&item=4543519400&rd=1

Anyone who knows how a sedan and convertible are designed and built (the right way) would not even consider buying this.

I am particularly fond of this line:

• Despite the customization, the car is solid. No noticeable structural issues affect the handling. The car cruises.

Unless the frame has been seriously reinforced, then cutting the roof of of a sedan will lead to a car which is very weak and probably dangerous to drive. Take this one over a railroad crossing and see how solid it is. I've owned convertibles that were designed as convertibles and were still not rigid. The best convertible I have ever driven is the MB SL which was designed and built to be a roadster and you cannot tell when driving it that it is anything less than solid.

This one, in short, is probably no more than a parts car now.

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Marty D.

2013 C300 4Matic
1984 BMW 733i
2013 Lincoln MKz

So this is probably not a good idea

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BENZ THERE DONE THAThttp://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/...c/progress.gif
15 VW Passat TDI
00 E420
98 E300 DT
97 E420 Donor Car - NEED PARTS? PM ME!
97 S500
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86 Holden Jackaroo Turbo D
86 300SDL
(o\|/o)

It least that one looks like it has a vertical stabilizer

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Marty D.

2013 C300 4Matic
1984 BMW 733i
2013 Lincoln MKz

This was a trend with little pickup trucks a few years back. I call them can-opener convertibles. In an accident it is deathtrap most likely.

Well, maybe the fact these cars still don't look like bananas is testimony to the fact that old MB's are indeed the strongest cars ever built.

Dave

Creative photo editing hides the 5th wheel castor under the middle of the car....

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Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Weld a roll bar in the middle and I would take it! With all the sheet metal in this model mercedes I doubt it lost a lot of structural integrity. I absolutely agree it would be an awful idea in a modern unibody with every extra ounce of weight removed. Not a great idea here but probably not as bad as you would think. These cars are not roll prone but why take chances!

You'd be surprised how much the flimsy roof helps the structural integrity of the whole car. I used to be a dismantler and when we would cut a roof off of a car, or even cut one pillar for that matter, the whole car became a wobbly POS. I guarantee if you were to shove this car from the side it would wobble and flex tremendously. I'll bet if you open one of those back doors and put some downward force on it, it would easily bend out of alignment. Sit on the damn door and it would probably bend all the way to the ground.

I am considering picking up a cheap 123 coupe and cutting off the roof. I have TIG welding equipment and would add longitudinal box channels to the rocker panels and add diagonal bracing at the door jambs, tying into the longitudinal channels. I would also add lateral bracings between the tops of the springs at the front, as well as the rear. Not really sure how to go about this. Do I need to be talked out of this?


I've already read a thread about this, but there was no technical advice: OK, I know this is crazy but ……

Thanks,
Robert

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89 300te 222,222
92 300e 190,000

"People's Republic of Kalifornication"

I took it for a jumble of pop culture references, the People's Republic is an old one, Californication a song, and a long time ago it was considered kool to turn all your c's into k's as in the Kalifornia Kustom Kar era at George Barris's Kustom City ( too bad about the sibilant C in City).

On that note, I know someone who has a late 70's VW Scirocco that was chopped into a permanent convertible. The car has no structural reinforcement and it's so weak that with two people in the car the body flexes too much so the doors are jammed shut. So essentially the car uses the doors are a structural member and should not be opened. I can imagine hard braking just snapping the frame in two!

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1974 240D 3.0L 4(M) - 250K -OM617.910 + 300D FW + Rajay turbo power!
1977 6.9 3(A) - 84k

I would expect that this car has similar problems. Structurally the roof and pillars are an element which prevents torsion and bending of the entire car. I would be interested to know, for example, if the MB SL topless weighs more than the SLC (its hardtop cousin), I would bet it does because the SL is probably heavily reinforced throughout its body to make up for the loss of the top.

It's like expecting a box section, after you cut the top off and turn it into a channel section to be just as strong in bending and torsion, it just won't be.

These MB bodies, as I understand, are also unibody construction with no "frame" per-se. Just because they were "overbuilt" you cannot say that the extra margin of safety they had makes up for removing the top. I would bet money that if you parked that car on an irregular surface that the doors would not open and close correctly because the body is flexing. Maybe going down a dead-level highway you won't feel it but try an evasive move at 70 MPH and this thing would not handle it very well.

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Marty D.

2013 C300 4Matic
1984 BMW 733i
2013 Lincoln MKz

Good point, through a tight slalom run the car would probably experience some Tacoma Narrows bridge action

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1974 240D 3.0L 4(M) - 250K -OM617.910 + 300D FW + Rajay turbo power!
1977 6.9 3(A) - 84k

The real test for the x-Benz would be to pile a bunch of folks into it and see if the doors will still shut/latch.

A long, long time ago, on a planet far away....I owned a TR-6. That daggone thing was so limber that if you pulled off the road onto the shoulder with one wheel off the pavement (it spent a lot of time like that), you had to really be careful closing the hood because the chassis would twist enough to misalign the hood opening.

What a piece of junk.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

There are a few W123 diesel convertable conversions out there that were built correct, and those come up on ebay from time to time, but they tend to go for close to$20,000 This one on ebay scares me a little, but I have seen many kids in my area cut the tops off there cars