Big Box delivered per UPS tracking. Enjoy!

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daw_two
Germantown, TN

Links:
Sold last car --- 05/2012 1984 300D Light Ivory, Red interior
Cluster Needles Paint
New Old Stock (NOS) parts

Past:
3/2008 1986 300SDL "Coda"
04/2010 1965 190D(c) "Ben"
& many more

you werent kidding about the description "big". Holy moly

palamino seat covers have arrived! Plus a glorious palamino head rest! (yes, I was very excited to see that)

Whats the little paint thingies you sent? glue? touchup seat color?

I thought at first you were sending me several vials of uncut columbian cocaine, but then I noticed it was a brush, not a straw

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Don't be to fast to jump to conclusions, it may just happen one day

I wish this happened to me, I would be like....its PARTY time!

Phoenix woman shocked to receive marijuana in the mail

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Got a pic of the Box? Just kidding .

If the paint is orange, it might be his gauge cluster needle paint kit.

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"Senior Luna, your sense of humor is still loco... but we love it, anyway." -rickymay ____ "Your sense of humor is still loco... " -MBeige ____ "Señor Luna, your sense of humor is quite järjetön" -Delibes

1982 300SD -- 211k, Texas car, tranny issues ____ 1979 240D 4-speed 234k -- turbo and tuned IP, third world taxi hot rod

2 Samuel 12:13: "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die."

Clearly I need to improve the lighting in my work area, as up until josseppi pointed out it was gauge paint, I would have put money on them being dark brown in color. That or I'm secretly going color blind.

Thanks daw_two!

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I knew the headrest would get you excited. You received one instrument cluster gauge needle paint kit; complete with napkin and paint brush. Shake the paint well before using.

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daw_two
Germantown, TN

Links:
Sold last car --- 05/2012 1984 300D Light Ivory, Red interior
Cluster Needles Paint
New Old Stock (NOS) parts

Past:
3/2008 1986 300SDL "Coda"
04/2010 1965 190D(c) "Ben"
& many more

few updates-

first, the cats out of the bag. Weirdly (with maybe poetic timing), her DD 97 volvo wagon chose monday to start spraying gasoline everywhere, turns out to be the sending unit that was installed by a local shop 3 months ago. They have been sitting on it all week trying to come up with a believable story as to why they don't have to warranty the issue.
This prompted a discussion on getting another car instigated by her on friday, and somehow I blew it and suspicion was formed as to me hiding something, and end of story is I told her the car exists. Oh well, she has seen the car and is very excited to begin driving it.

That brings us to getting it up and running, ive installed a spare pair of rear calipers I had laying around since the ones on there were frozen, and ive completely removed all the VO setup, but in the process managed to break the main vac line, so waiting on that as well as some filters and tune up stuff, but getting close to plating this vehicle and putting it on the road.

Unfortunately she ended up seeing it like this-



dog damage- Like it never happened- (also put in a manual passenger side mirror, and a new inner door handle)

before and after-



Stuff from daw for the front seats-

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wagon questions-

1. how do I remove the rear seat headrests to fold the seats flat? I know this should be obvious to me, but im not making it happen somehow.

2. In the below pic, does the missing carpet above the 3rd row seat start out from the panel at the top of the pic, and extend to the snaps below?
Is the way it works designed that you unsnap it and roll it back, then fold up the seats, but the carpeting is part of that panel right behind the seats?

Just working on the 3rd row seats stuff Louis4052 gave me with the car

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1. There are three push buttons on the back of the seats. They face the sky when folded down. They are about the size of your pinky and are slightly recessed. They may easily be mistaken for stains or melted raisinetts.

2. Yes. The carpet in the trunk originally extended from the plastic piece just beyond where your arrow starts.

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-Louis
The Hills of Western Mass.
1985 300TD 327,777 sold to JB3
1985 300D 218,xxx
1987 190D 5 speed 338,xxx

great, thanks!

so as we were discussing on the rust repair on the vehicle not getting up past midpoint on the drivers side, I started to get into the pedal mount, and discovered some pretty bad rust up in that corner behind the tire. I couldn't let it go, I just kept picking and picking, and now ive uncovered a kinda large issue. Forum member Stretch is having an impact on me, before ive even had a chance to register this vehicle, ive taken it to bits!

After uncovering it, Ive gotta fix it before I take for state inspection because it will obviously fail. Preview of the damage-

so initially I thought this was the majority of the problem-



Actual damage is quite a bit more extensive though. That above throttle pedal is actually screwed into vinyl, not any metal. looks seamless underneath. The floor area has 5 holes in it. (circled 4 here, but found another big one between the center one and the pedal)



Then because I couldn't leave well enough alone, I went out to this bit, which as you recall looked like this-



And I opened that pandora's box-



and that pandoras box pulled open the lid of another pandoras box-



^^^ this hole is even larger too, I pulled off a lot more undercoating after this pic and found the extent of it.

so, rust repair on this corner of the car will proceed earlier than I originally intended. I intend to fix this before the fiance drives it around.

heres an interesting pic- the gray area is the vinyl undercoating. its so think that its as stiff as the metal right in this area, yet there is no floor pan left. This unique to mercedes problem is pretty irritating, this will take considerable work to expose for welding-

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ive purchased some klokkerholm patch panels, specifically the rocker skin, and a front floor pan since thats looking like swiss cheese the more I dig through the vinyl.

I also purchased some other bits, including some piece that was 20 bucks, but looks very much like the firewall section missing. For 20 bucks I figured what the heck, ill see what it actually is.

The firewall and inner fender, as well as outer skin of the rocker should be fairly simple repairs with excellent welding access, and I may just fabricate the firewall pieces. Where things get complex is the floor pan and the inner rocker. There is considerable damage right there. Ill post a few pics when I get all the rotten material cut out.

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Is this rust worse than the 83 you bought from me? What's the cause of this kind of rust? Is it water getting inside the car or water from outside? I am testing a wet floor alarm circuit which is very promising (it is a modification to the low coolant alarm circuit that I've been testing). It will let you know when the floors get wet and will prevent the car from rusting inside out if you find and fix the source of the leak (if it is not already rusted out). Better late than never?

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85 300D turbo pristine w 157k when purchased 161K now
83 300 D turbo 297K runs great. SOLD!
83 240D 4 spd manual- parted out then junked

this was one of the unrepaired areas on the car, id call the specific rust in this location worse than that 83, but the general rust condition better. Rear floor pans have already been repaired, lots of other body work has been kept on top of quite well. The car has rust, but its been worked on consistently, and never went that far south.
On the drivers side, there is a very clear division between the original front floor pan, and the new steel welded in starting about midpoint back. This was one of the last areas that is original to the car.

The rust cause looks very much like hood pocket drain clog rust. starts right under the pocket, and expands downward for the firewall and inner fender. This mixes with general jackpoint rust, and water getting into the rocker from there to kill the floor. Add a few other specific holes for screw locations. Its a rich tapestry of corrosion

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I never tried hard enough to find all the water entry points in the 83. I did get the windshield replaced but Safelite did a hack job and it still leaked afterwards. The rear passenger floor was always wet after it rains.

I will be pulling the carpets on my 85 to check the rust situation.

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85 300D turbo pristine w 157k when purchased 161K now
83 300 D turbo 297K runs great. SOLD!
83 240D 4 spd manual- parted out then junked

ok, so ive removed enough material that I have to start putting some back before I forget how things worked, or other bits fall off.

here is how the rocker/firewall hole looks with most of the rot taken out-



also there is this hole that must be addressed. looked like this originally-



cut away some of the support, goes way up behind it with paper thin unweldable steel



I will have to remove this entire bit to really get a good patch on that hole, and cut it out properly



heres the plan of action on the firewall vertical hole. Two large patches should take care of most of this area (I may change this plan if I remove that bit right above first)-



For the rocker, once the ordered rocker panel arrives, ill do that in two pieces as well. Actually the firewall piece could be one big piece, but I might be borrowing trouble trying to get that all the way down, easier to weld two bits together



here is why no one will work on these cars. Even on the inside there are huge collections of vinyl in all the worst places



I have a considerable vein of rot that goes all the way back to the previous patch panels. Dont want to cut too much until I start putting stuff back. I can think of no better way to overwhelm myself on this repair project.



Incidentally, this is the first time ive used a sawzall instead of a grinder to remove metal for a rust project like this. This is the way to do it, sawzall doesn't throw sparks or heat things (if its sharp), it doesn't melt the vinyl, and as an added bonus the reciprocating action actually pulls the vinyl away from the steel in a lot of places making it easier to peel back. Im sold. Ill only use a grinder when I absolutely have to now.

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