Hey all,

My '85 is near the end of it's working life. It needs 2 ball joints and a whole passenger side floor pan welded in amongst a long list of other things to keep it going and safe through the winter. With two other amazing 300D's in the stable, a wife, 5 month old daughter that i want to hang with...im throwing in the towel and taking the parts off the car for the other two.

is there a good/creative way to store a parts car?

is the most efficient way to take the parts i want and send the body away?

i live in an urban enough area i cant keep it around here super long. i do want to keep the driveline somehow for a rainy day....i have two other vehicles that could have

all ideas welcomed.

cheers,
dd

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'85 300D, 'Lance',250k, ... winter beater (100k on franken-Frybrid 3 Valve Kit)
'82 300D, 'Tex', 228k body / 170k engine ... summer car
'83 300TD Cali Wagon 210k, wife's car

You've got 3 options:
-Gut it, and put the parts in your basement.
-Hide it whole, under a nice car cover, or some bushes, or a fake shed around it.
-Find someone with space out back and give them a few bucks to park it there.

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$60 OM617 Blank Exhaust Flanges
$110 OM606 Blank Exhaust Flanges
No merc at the moment

Get rid of all of them,buy a newer car and enjoy your precious little time you have with your kid. She's only going to be 5 months old for a little while longer.

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Eugene

10 E63 AMG
93 300te 4matic
07 BMW X3
14 Ford F-150 Fx2

A cutting torch is the quick and easy way to dispose of an auto if you've really stripped all the usable parts.

I don't have one so I'd use a cutting wheel on a grinder and a sawsall for anything that the grinder won't get.

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84 300SD
85 380SE
83 528e
95 318ic

Make a list of parts that fit your current cars organized by location ( interior , under hood , under car. ).

Only take off non perishable parts that you can't easily buy. ( save switches , instrument cluster, under hood goodies , lights , lenses. Don't bother saving calipers , rotors , master cylinder unless sub 2 years old. )

More importantly, you need to have a reasonably reliable sub 15 year old " good " car that you can walk into any decent auto parts and walk out with what ever you need to get it going again. The stuff in your sig does not fit " the one good car in the fleet " specification.

We have a '12 Hyundai Elantra Touring (which is a nice, fairly well made car) which we rely on when we dont want to drive the Benzes or have car issues. I'm definitely in 'park it' mode when there's an issue and deal with it when i feel like it.

Thanks for the ideas. Torch/sawzall makes a lot of sense.

I'll strive to look for a spot for it to hang out while i strip parts.

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'85 300D, 'Lance',250k, ... winter beater (100k on franken-Frybrid 3 Valve Kit)
'82 300D, 'Tex', 228k body / 170k engine ... summer car
'83 300TD Cali Wagon 210k, wife's car

Good to hear you have the one good car that allows for other interesting cars.

Cutting a car into pieces is lots of work not to mention dealing with interior seats , carpet. Disposing of glass is the worst part as it makes a mess. I've cut cars to pieces when titles were not in my name and the yard would not take them. ( Can't take all of a cut up car at one time, take a few pieces here and there. )

Given you have a title, pull off the parts you need then call a salvage yard / scrap metal place / local we buy scrap cars guy. Even if you give it away or pay a tow fee it is worth not having to do some much work. Cars are paying about $ 5.50 per 100 LB across the scale at a scrap metal yard if you can get it there.

There are still places that specialize in breaking Mercs. I'd call someone like Dave Hendy, Potomac German, Adsit, whichever was most local, and see what they would offer for your roller. Take whatever cash you get and open a spare parts savings account. Take it from someone who has two and a half sectioned up cars in the crawl space, it's not worth holding on.

The key is to make it not *look* like a parts car, in order to keep the neighbors happy. Perhaps park it in the front yard so its off the street, but surround it with decorative planters filled with flowers. Used toilet bowls make for great inexpensive planters, so pickup a dozen or so and position them around the vehicle.

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1998 E300 turbodiesel

America's Rights and Freedoms Are Not The Enemy!

Rust pretty much eliminates saving body panels. Some northern cars just did not accumulate as much overall milage. So some if not many mechanical parts are worth hanging on to. Or selling.

My Honda beater still has only about 60K miles. Mechanically reliable but the rust is starting to take a serious toll as well. I replaced it with a higher unknown milage car with zero rust in good condition. I am still undecided if I will let the Honda go or patch the rust. Since the new beater shows no evidence of being used in our rust belt winter conditions. Even though it was a fairly local car.

I will never know just how many actual driven miles the newer acquisition has. Because it was towed far and wide behind an rv vehicle. Shows 100k miles when converted from kilometers. A test on a long hill indicates it still records miles when the ignition switch is in the first on position releasing the steering lock but leaving the instrument cluster dead.

Park in a tow away zone.

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1981 240D Four on the floor, Orient Red over Parchment, bought with 154,000 but it's a daily driver and up to 180,000 miles, mostly original paint and all original interior.

A storage rental location has a car and rv parking area and usually cost less than $35 a month .Taking the seats out and disposing of them gives you a pretty good size parts shed.This is one consideration .You have enough parts on it to realize a savings over vs car parts hunting /time / removing of parts time for parts is another.Lastly would be to consider any future projects you might want to consider ,this can become a good problem if managed properly .Once done and you want to leave the restore mb projects community you can sell it whole with all its parts inside to another mb head.They can hookup and go with a wrecker off to a new home ,this generation of mb cars and parts in 10 yrs will become scarce as time puts the cars off the highways and in the yards.

Buy an electrical impact gun. Buzz it apart as far as you want. Store in boxes with parts from 1 area in the box. Leave body panels intact. Have yard come get it. Keep anything you may want.