It was all worth it in the end!
It took me years to get to this level of wrenching where I could restore a car and I made tons of mistakes along the way--stripped bolts and even a ruined engine or two
.The only thing is I've been as gearhead for 20 years and there were quite a few afternoons when other guys were golfing, partying, watching football, coaching little league, hanging out at the beach or enjoying their vacations and it was just me out there in the sun or dark night, wrenching away...
I'm so tired I can't enjoy it..


The only other thing is this Website was literally where I learned everything about this car and without it, i would never have been able to do this. I wish i could thank all those people who helped along the way, because I am definitely not a natural or guru or natural. I've got to be the clumsiest, unorthodox guy who ever touched tools. I owe you guys.Are you listening Larry Bible or Brian or RS899?

I must admit that the dark blue looks better than the bright blue that you had used before.

Take a break from the wrenching and enjoy your freshly painted ride. But if you are like me you will be back to wrenching before you know it. I do it for two reasons: 1. I can't afford a Mercedes mechanic and 2. I would never let anyone touch my cars anyway.

__________________
Doug

1987 300TD x 3
2005 E320CDI

As always, we want more pictures.

__________________
raMBow

1999 E300DT Obsydian Black Metallic, Heated Full Leather Parchment options, E2, K2, 136,000+, best 36.5 mpg - GP's 12-04 & 11-12 Zero Stuck
2010 Honda Odyssey - The BrideMobile - best 26.5
(2) 2005 Honday Accord- (1 -Corporate 1 - Personal) - 110,000 4-cyl 30mpg
2000 VW Golf GLS TDI, Upsolute Chip (sold to Brother, now 300+k on it) 48.5 mpg like clock work
1987 Honda CRX HF - Sold 87,000 always over 50 mpg Max 67 mpg

Rich -

Is that your car? It looks dark gray to me. I need to get a new pair of rose colored glasses.

Looks great. I am still fighting with the bodywork on my old 67 Ford pickup.

I swear the FORD factory must have incentivized its painters on the assembly line to see who could save the most paint. There probably isn't a quart of paint on that whole truck. What a POS!. I have inside panels that dont look like they were ever painted- with the obvious result 39 years later.

Rick

When are you going to do the next one?

__________________
80 300SD (129k mi) 82 240D stick (193k mi)77 240D auto - stick to be (153k mi) 85 380SL (145k mi) 89 BMW 535i 82 Diesel Rabbit Pickup (374k mi) 91 Jetta IDI Diesel (155k mi) 81 VW Rabbit Convertible Diesel 70 Triumph Spitfire Mk III (63kmi)66 Triumph TR4a IRS (90k mi)67 Ford F-100 (??)

Looks sweet. (Thats good for a car.)

__________________
JWJ
1983 MB 300D - > 430,000 miles - Deep Blue - Bilstein Comforts - 0-60 in 24 seconds - 27MPG
1985 MB 300TD (wagon) - > 275,000 miles - Manila Beige - Thule rack - 0-60 in 18 seconds - 22 - 25MPG
Biodiesel, Mobil Delvac 1, and Viton fuel lines!

Put that puppy in drive and head to the beach for a well deserved vacation.

__________________
1981 300D 147k
1998 VW Jetta Tdi 320k
2001 Dodge Ram 2500 141k
1979 300D 234k (sold)
1984 300D "Astor" 262k(sold)
Mercedes How-To and Repair Pictorials
I love the smell of diesel smoke in my hair

Richard,

Congrats........you did good.

You deserve a long vacation for restoring that vehicle to perfection.

Now, hopefully, you'll bring it to the next GTG so that we can all ogle it.

Its kind of a cosmic thing. Without this website, my interset in Mercedes and probably cars would have died years ago. People here are the classiest, friendliest and most decent in the world. BTW thats not my house in the background, that lady has about 150K invested in new cars!!

Respect your maturity and judgement!

Thanks for your interest. Now to paint the gold hand painted Pinstripe, which will not have my name. Maybe something like "Wrench", "Tired" or "ShopForum"

Nice Job!

__________________
64 European Coupe Brilliant Silver with Red interior 4 Speed Sunroof
87 TDT 286k
87 SDL 195k
83 SD 202k
83 SD 201k
83 D 286k
02 R1150RT 32K
00 122HP FLSTF
07 KTM 250SX

"Danger takes many forms"