1978 450SLC Super beater/lemons race car - Page 9 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

rwd4evr · #**121** 06-05-2017, 06:08 AM

Well there is plenty of issues with the suspension mods I have in mind but may be do-able. I don't think having g them pointed at each other in the rear is going to work so a roll bar to have the shock mounts to brace to is probably needed. I'll worry about that later.

rwd4evr · #**122** 06-05-2017, 07:06 AM

i got the rear frame rail repairs all done last night, this morning.....whatever it is now. got pics but have to text them to myself to reduce the size then email them to up load. so annoying. i need some sleep.

fonzi · #**123** 06-05-2017, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rwd4evr

i got the rear frame rail repairs all done last night, this morning.....whatever it is now. got pics but have to text them to myself to reduce the size then email them to up load. so annoying. i need some sleep.

Get some sleep. Congrats on finally getting the welding (needed to get rear end back in) all done!

Maybe I can get down there tonight to help you get the rear end back in there if you will be ready.

The auto guide app on my iPhone handles all that picture stuff for me. ;-)

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rwd4evr · #**124** 06-05-2017, 09:26 PM

The welds don't look very good in the pics but its a lap joint so its kinda convex already. With the space constraints being under the car right up against the floor the torch angle is pretty much whatever is possible in the area. I ground through in a couple places to be sure i had good penetration before i smoothed it out and painted it. I used a silicon spray can nozzle and tube in the paint can to spray the primer rust reformer in between the layers of the repair. it looks like mercedes didn't at all and most of the rot seemed to start at spot welds. Hopefully it got everywhere in there. It was dripping out the bottom seam so i think it did. Man, I'd have a lot in this car if i was paying for metal work! So many layers of crap in this area to peel back to fix. I forgot to get a pic of it all peeled back though. If you look closely next to the hole the subframe bolts through there is a small patch that covers a hole that would be under the rear seat bottom. Any hole in the floor become places for smoke, or worse fire to come rolling in if you throw a rod or something spectacular and fire ball under the car at high speed. I believe for lemons tech all the rubber drain plugs in the floor need to be metal or welded up. Still have the outer rocker and quarter to do. Yay. I am learning what to do and what not to though. I can put the rear axle back under it finally now and that's progress enough for this week.

rwd4evr · #**125** 07-30-2017, 07:56 AM

Well I'd like to say the car was ready to roll but it's not. Lots of work done but it doesn't really seem like it. Been short on time and motivation sometimes.

I have done alot of research and learned how shock valving and adjustment works, and more importantly how to revalve shocks. I also found a place to buy the shims in all different thicknesses and sizes separately so you don't pay hundreds of dollars for racetech or whomever to do it for you. Even though they are adjustable you need them to be in the ballpark so you can go softer or harder from where it is
for different conditions. I'm thinking I'm going to use two 2003-2004 gsx-r 750 rear shocks on each wheel with pushrods. They are factory Showa shocks that are revalveable and rebuildable. Basically race shocks you would upgrade to. I'm going to stick with the cars springs in the stock position but with adjustable perches. Then the pushrod set up is just the damping and not carrying the whole weight of the car.

I also decided that one wheel spinning would be unacceptable and really piss me off really fast so the differential got welded. I did alot of research on that too. Every one I found on YouTube that blew up or broke had the gears welded to the gear carrier which i believe would cause distortion and do bad things to bearings. I welded the spider gears to each other and made sure to get them sitting in a good position to be able to fill under the deepest edge as possible. Then welded them solid moving around a couple times to keep heat spread around. I cut a couple of pieces of steel with teeth kinda cut in them to fit between the gears and welded them in to make both sides solid. It would really have been better to have the diff out of the housing to protect the bearings but it wasn't happening this time. I used aluminum cans cut up and trimmed to fit over and around the bearings to try to keep slag balls out of them. Putting the diff upside-down helped keep slag out of the pinion bearing too. I covered the ring gear with nozzle protector gel too. I'll be shocked if the spider gears are the breaking point if something let's go in there. Cleaning up the inside was a pain in the ass. A strong ass neodymium magnet on a wire strapped to screwdriver helped pop a bunch of stuck balls that would probably have gotten loose and done bad things. Lots of gas sprayed in there and brushed with it open side down got as much as I could find out of it. I then JB welded the big strong magnet to the inside of the drain plug. I figure it will grab anything still bouncing around in there after a few beatings.

rwd4evr · #**126** 07-30-2017, 08:41 AM

The other thing I've been spending time on researching and planning and all last night working on is a hydraulic hand brake. I thought
about installing a hand lever for the drum ebrake but they kinda suck to begin with. all the work it would take to modify it wouldn't be worth it if it didn't engage evenly and consitently without a massive yank. Plumbing it inline causes footbrake issues I'm not prepared to live with. So a second caliper has to be mounted completely separate from the foot brake system. I mounted two rear calipers to the control arm, both using one of the bolt holes each. I made a spacer to keep the calipers the right distance off the rotor and made a template from plastic to get the right shape figured out for the outer mounts. Luckily I have a ****load of spare rear control arms, so I cut the mount off another arm about the shape I needed. Then I did some fitting and decided the e-brake shoes and backing plate had to go to be able to weld it properly. It's a serious pain in the ass to get that thing apart and the backing plate had to be cut off. No way it's going back together. The positive side to that is all the crap I took off is almost the same wieght as the second caliper. I have it fitted pretty well, needs a couple touches with a grinder and it's good to weld. I'm going to cut the parts for the other side and match them before I weld these on. I'm planning on having the rotors bolted on tight and the calipers bolted to the original points and the new legs with pressure in the calipers to keep it all as square as possible. I'll weld some on both sides of the legs before removing the calipers for finish welding to minimize warpage. The control arms have to come out of the subframe to weld them properly too and luckily I have new heavy duty bushings I never used from my first Mercedes(300td) so that's a plus.

This car may not be the fastest thing (with this motor) but it sure is gonna be a hell of a lot of fun.

rwd4evr · #**127** 08-25-2017, 04:44 AM

The rear brake brackets are done. All welded on one side and i'm gonna get the other side saturday i hope. then pop the new bushings in and reassemble the rear subframe. my goal is to get the completed subframe back in this weekend. I am going to cut a coil from my rear spring and bend the last coil a little to replicate how its shaped originally for the time being. I don't want to lower it too much in the rear yet. I've been kinda leaning towards getting the car set up to be a decent drift car lately so i have to keep the rear camber in check. they camber in bad if lowered too much. I'm goping to shorten the rear sway bar arms to increase satiffness. I have some spring clamps if i need to get the rear lower in a hurry at the event. I am trying to have it drivable for a september 9 drift event in dover. I know its really not going to be great in its first set up but its last event of the year so it will help me get an idea of where i really have to go with the setup this winter.
I've been researching front suspension geometry and effects lowering the car with shorter springs has on the camber curve and roll center. on the front i'm planning on two coils removed and i have seen the results on a 450sl. i'm going to run the suspension through its range and see where everything ends up when the car is lowered. I believe that once lowered the camber curve is going to be close to the end of its effective range and will need to be adjusted to keep handling predictable. I'm going to look at the effect of using a taller ball joint on the bottom control arm. A chevy Joint with three different lengths can be adapted. It will get the lower control arm back to where the engineers intended. similar to the effect a lowering spindle would have. it will also change the angle of the upper arm increasing camber gain with body roll. check this thread out for a little more info on that.

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/performance-paddock/388150-r-c-107-w114-w115-lower-ball-joint-size.html#post3742054

rwd4evr · #**128** 08-30-2017, 06:12 AM

Well I got a good bit of stuff done this past weekend and Monday Tuesday. The ebrake caliper mounts are all done and the new control arm bushings are in. I built a custom steering wheel adapter for a 1990 momo steering wheel I scored in the trunk of a parts car. Store bought adapters are shorter than I want and cash I don't want to spend. The front springs have been relived of two coils. I was going to show how I did it with a spring compressor from advanced Auto but it requires a bunch of stuff I had laying around and it was sketchy at best so I wont. I cut one coil off the rear springs and have a thinner pad from a 450sl. I figured out how I'm going to do my e brake handle using some parts from an exercise machine with nice have heim joints. Last thing I got done was weld the broken reverse lever and rebuild the shifter using the good parts from a fresh w123 shifter. I think I was a bit delirious by the time I started reassembling the shifter. I removed some paint with the wire wheel on a dremmel while cleaning the shifter base and it snowballed into me actually polishing it. In my sleep deprived mind it was a little bit of bling for her since so much is being removed(don't ask, I'm losing it!)

rwd4evr · #**129** 08-30-2017, 06:22 AM

And I forgot a pic of it reasembled before I reinstalled it but everything was meticulously cleaned and greased and it shifts like a bolt action rifle. Good to get a ****load done this weekend. Sept 9 is looking possible. Body work is last on the list though. Getting excited for it to run on its own fuel system soon, and to sit on wheels for the first time in months. This coming weekend and mon Tuesday (I'm off) is going to be work work work eat work work on the car. Then roasting tires!!!

fonzi · #**130** 08-30-2017, 11:25 AM

Nice work! Glad to see somebody is using that welder! SP100 is a pretty good unit as I understand.

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fonzi · #**131** 09-08-2017, 07:57 AM

Stealing some thunder... last night I helped install the rear axle. I left when the drive shaft and brake lines were the main things needing to be reinstalled. Oh... totally forgot about the exhaust, but that should be easy. Right? Then there's fenders, the hood, headlights, a front bumper (maybe). And I think there's maybe 24 hours before this thing is supposed to be dragged to the drift event by my truck and @sheppymach 's dolly. An oil change would be nice. And oh... what about the radiator? Didn't it get damaged while out of the car? Wow. Lots left still. So glad that thing finally has a rear axle in it once again though.

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rwd4evr · #**132** 09-11-2017, 04:41 AM

Yes that's fine, thanks a bunch!!

I worked pretty much non stop(when not at one of my jobs) for the last week until Saturday morning. I got the car on all four wheels running at about 3 something in the morning. Brakes we're all rebuilt or scavenge from good driving cars, nice firm pedal. One headlight, one fender one tailights. Roll out of my shop into the middle of a big ass biker party in the building next door. Get some serious "what the fu#k is that" looks, plus I've been awake for 2 days straight and look like a complete crazy black faced mess. Roll out of the gate on my island up a Road a couple hundred yards long and to basically a completely abandoned old boat dock area. Punched it a couple times on the way and figured out that I had 1/2 and 3/4 shift Rod switched. So that sucked but I could still put it in whatever gear I wanted to it was just hard to make yourself do the wrong shift from a bacwards H pattern shifter. Once I knew I had brakes and second gear I lit into it and this thing does Donuts like crazy nice and smooth. Rolled back to the shop through the party parking and checked air pressures and rolled back out again and did Donuts at the end of my street in the industrial complex. I won't say it's super fast but it definitely gets up. Ill try to go back and document some stuff but I just went beserk and buttoned up a list of little things to pass tech like sheeting a couple rust issues in the foot well. I was figuring if I could get there I'd have time to put a couple bolts in a fender and a headlight and button up that **** at the track. I went to leave at about 730 am Saturday morning and the shifter was jammed between gears after I swapped the shift rods. Unfortunately I didn't find that out till I let off the clutch in neutral and the car lurched forward and almost fell off the front of the lift ramps. I couldn't move it backwards and I couldn't pick the car up on the lift. Driver meeting at 9 am. Not gonna make it. DAMN!!.
Good try I guess. I did manage to drag it safely back in the lift and fix the shifter for some more fun, but the drift event was mandatory driver meeting and no chance I could get there in time. The stance is damn near perfect with one coil removed rear and two in the front. Thin upper spring pads in the rear. I'll get some more details on the rear end parts soon. It's coming along nicely. Nov 4 is the next event I was not aware until yesterday. So psyched I can have it actually ready to go then. Will be daily driving it for a bit shortly to shake it down.

rwd4evr · #**133** 09-12-2017, 06:18 PM

I'll give a little rundown on the rear brake setup. There's a picture of the final completed hydraulic brake handle bolted in(see previous post.). And a shot of it before I built the mounts and extended the lower pull rod. The master cylinder is a 73 450sl master cylinder with the second circuit sealed off. It may be a little big because currently the e-brake will slow the car down but I'm not getting enough leverage to lock up the tires. Before I change it I'm going to change the leverage point on the upper portion of the rocker arm and see how that works. In the rear for the hose and line mount I used a piece of Steel with the correct size hole drilled in it, the same size as the original brake line mount and then another hole in it to Mount the second brake line off of the original spot. the clip had to be ground down a bit to clear the extra metal. I have to use front brake hoses because they are two and a half inches longer to clear everything. Currently the shorter brake lines on the top are touching the sway bars slightly.

( the first three are turned 90 degrees for some reason. they are not in my phone and im not screwing with it. left is up)

rwd4evr · #**134** 09-12-2017, 06:50 PM

The rear shocks worked out great. I talked to kyb shocks tech line, it lists kg5554 for the rear, for sl or slc but I found the 300se listed with a kg5533. They said the kg5533 is stiffer and it is identical in size and mounts. It is nice and firm. No wheel hop at all burning tires like mad. One coil removed and a thinner sl top spring pad and ride height is good. I could put the thick top pad back in if I want a little more height.

rwd4evr · #**135** 10-30-2017, 03:00 AM

Haven't had anytime to update this lately. The car runs good. Been driving it a fair amount. Took it to an autocross a few weeks ago and won my class. It hauls ass but 65 or so is all it really likes on the highway. 75 is 4000 rpm. Going to drift it this weekend, I have made some mods to the hand brake and almost have it fine tuned. Here's a little update video.

https://youtu.be/Spt80DGxz0o

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