The ups and downs of owning a W123.130 (non turbo 300D) - Conversion to petrol / gas! - Page 7 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Stretch · #91 11-19-2018, 04:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwnate1

? Remember those little garage / gas stations with a house that used to dot the entire globe ? .

I tried mightily to buy one in the 1970's when they were worthless, no one took me seriously and there are still a very few left, none still sell gasoline of course and neither would I .

...

Unfortunately every property developer in the country would be after that land now (only to find the environmental clean up bill to be more than they expected!) - but yeah I'd like a place like that too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwnate1

...
? I wonder, if I sent you my rust free 300CD, how long would it take to be cherry once again ?

.

Rust free W123? Never seen one - don't believe they exist!

Even so my rate of progress is so painfully slow I reckon it would be the best part of a decade before I'd be able to get round to doing it so don't look up shipping quotes just yet.

Diseasel300 · #92 11-19-2018, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stretch

Rust free W123? Never seen one - don't believe they exist!

You'd die if you saw under my SDL then. Did the rear suspension and subframe mounts yesterday. Despite no boots left on the antirollbar links, the balls were still rust-free. More impressively, the subframe mounts were still factory. The bolts that pulled out of the center were still bright gold and looked like they came out of the box yesterday.

Low humidity environment and lack of road salt is the key to longevity apparently. Just don't look at my interior!

vwnate1 · #93 11-19-2018, 09:40 AM

You'd did if you ever saw a California junkyard .

I came to California in the Summer of 1969 from New England and was flabbergasted at the 1930's cars still being used as beaters, no rust and most with decent original paint no less .

Sadly, my Coupe's backlight grommet is bad and there's a small rust hole just below it and bubbles are beginning to appear in the paint moving upwards .

unkl300d · #94 11-19-2018, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwnate1

To this just discovered great thread .

I agree, your tech notes are very helpful to everyone who reads them .

Me too !

Thanks Stretch for this wonderful information packed reference !

Stretch · #95 11-19-2018, 03:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diseasel300

You'd die if you saw under my SDL then. Did the rear suspension and subframe mounts yesterday. Despite no boots left on the antirollbar links, the balls were still rust-free. More impressively, the subframe mounts were still factory. The bolts that pulled out of the center were still bright gold and looked like they came out of the box yesterday.

Low humidity environment and lack of road salt is the key to longevity apparently. Just don't look at my interior!

...And I thought they left the factory with rust holes...

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwnate1

You'd did if you ever saw a California junkyard .

I came to California in the Summer of 1969 from New England and was flabbergasted at the 1930's cars still being used as beaters, no rust and most with decent original paint no less .

Sadly, my Coupe's backlight grommet is bad and there's a small rust hole just below it and bubbles are beginning to appear in the paint moving upwards .

You need to do something about it - bubbles ain't good

Quote:

Originally Posted by unkl300d

Me too !

Thanks Stretch for this wonderful information packed reference !

I've got a few mad things planned for fixing this car - I hope to add quite a bit to this thread.

Because of the little d and all that time in storage the work I did previously has more or less been wasted. It has, however, been a good test for POR15 products...

...I think they've failed. I'll be posting evidence soon.

Stretch · #96 11-20-2018, 09:50 AM

(if indeed it is appropriate to view such things like that!)

Welding and grinding in a workshop can cause a whole heap of trouble when you send sparks onto finished parts. I've been on the look out for some welding blankets that I can string up for some time...

...but the other day I stumbled upon these =>

Nice sturdy construction - probably made in the first half of the twentieth century - hard to knock over (which for me is a good thing!)

They're about six foot square and have these gucci little rods that come out the side =>

I assume they are for going through eyelets in a tarpaulin / welding blanket

Hopefully these screens will help preserve the bits I actually manage to get finished!

Stretch · #97 11-20-2018, 10:10 AM

...and I ran out of consumables - bloody consumables - I use them up so quickly

I figured I might as well start at the front of the car - where I had left off. In a panic before the eviction I sprayed a load of primer over the parts I wanted to protect =>

The multi-coloured nature of this engine bay is rather depressing - some of the primer has held back the surface rust - some not.

Some of the POR15 has failed - flaked - and fallen off. I'll be using a different product (more about that later)

My favourite paint removal method is still the angle grinder and wire brush attachment. It does take time. It might seem to some like a rather aggressive method but it turns out to be quite a gentle way of removing paint. Sand blasting, for example, can bend sheet metal and the more popular "send it to the acid bath place" can cause a whole load of trouble if the acid isn't neutralised properly.

Some people like those 3M clean and strip discs - but phew - what a price they work out to be - and despite what the packet says about not damaging the metal underneath: I call bull **** on that one. I think the 3M clean and strip discs are about as aggressive as the sand paper stripping discs (I use them for fast removal of {too much} welds).

From a cost perspective the angle grinder and wire brush attachment(s) are about as cheap as you can get material-wise. Time-wise it is a chore.

The thing to remember about this kind of preparation is that it is a 3D problem: There is no point in painting one side of a piece of sheet metal if you are then going to strip the other side =>

Heat from paint removal might make your newly coated paintwork on the other side come away and the joins where the sides meet get damaged. Best to strip both sides before you start with the rust treatments and paints.

To remove this old POR15 paint I'm going to help myself along a bit with paint stripper.

####

Here we come to another problem (especially in Europe) where paint stripper isn't what it used to be. So far I've been using POR-strip which at least does something some of the time. I've also been using a product called Synstrip which does a slightly better job than the POR-strip.

Both of these products are acid based - so you need to clean them off quickly before they tarnish the metal underneath. The days of "letting it soak in over night" are long gone.

I've heard tell of an alternative to those mentioned above - if it works out I'll let you know,

vwnate1 · #98 11-20-2018, 10:39 AM

Looking good .

Several decades ago I was involved in an ex NATO Mercedes Unimog that came with a product called 'rustmort' ~ is it available in Europe still ? that's where it came from .

I too, like the rotary wire bushes, they're very gentle unless you're working on soft alloy metals .

Time, yes indeedy they take time but well worth the troubles IMO .

I use them to strip clean assembled engines I want to paint and re install, I find the bare metal approach makes them not only look god but last far longer than the usual spraying over all the old paint remaining .

Stretch · #99 11-20-2018, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwnate1

Looking good .

Several decades ago I was involved in an ex NATO Mercedes Unimog that came with a product called 'rustmort' ~ is it available in Europe still ? that's where it came from .

...

It still exists

https://www.semproducts.com/product/rust-morttm/morttm

Much like lots of the other rust eating / converter products it is acid based.

I've been using something similar called Rustyco - it is more of a rust eater than a converter (so not quite like Fertan and the rust-mort). I think the closest equivalent to Rustyco outside of the Benelux countries is Evapo-rust.

Some links=>

The breakthrough against rust | Rustyco

https://www.evapo-rust.com/

vwnate1 · #**100** 11-20-2018, 09:12 PM

Okey doke ;

I use Phosphoric Acid dilute and I vaguely recall Rustmort having that in it .

One should't just use any old Acid, many do then wonder why the rust comes back worse .

Stretch · #**101** 11-23-2018, 09:44 AM

The welding has started (I expect to be doing it for a while so get ready to be as bored as I'm going to be)

For the record I thought I'd keep track of the consumables - these often get forgotten in calculations - they can eat into the budget (big time).

My 10L bottle of Argon is almost full - it was filled in the summer and now the temperature is fairly close to zero in the workshop at the moment so there's potentially a little bit more in there than the gauge indicates (if it warms up again)

(There's a top tip - buy refills in the winter if they happen to fill 'em outside!)

I even broke out a new pair of welding gloves - the extravagance...

Stretch · #**102** 11-23-2018, 09:59 AM

The very front part of the engine bay is one of those places where water seems to find its way in and settle. On my car this has happened a long time ago so someone added a rather crude plate over the top of the damage.

As you can see the usual MIG welds were made - it is amazing how people think laying welds on top of metal is an art - effing great big lumps of protruding muck [Rant over for now!]

Here's the selection of metal cutting discs I use. I've got a the normal 115mm / 125mm (4 1/2" and 5" ish) angle grinders as well as a little 76mm cordless Bosch grinder. When even the 76mm disc is too big I go for the Dremel tool with cheapo accessories from the Lidl (Lidl is a German smaller scale version of Wall Mart I guess - a bit more supermarket-ish)

After cutting around the thick ridges of MIG weld trying to save as much original metal as possible I usually use metal fatigue to my advantage and give the cut out pieces a good wiggle (!)

There's a bit of a grotty sealant edge up against the front panel where the headlight sits that has been spot welded. To remove spot welds I prefer again to cut the metal I'm removing into sections and twist the metal away - thus breaking the spot weld

(Using hand snips is often faster and cleaner than cutting discs - so I use them when ever possible)

(Continued in next post - limited to 5 pictures per post on this forum at the moment)

Stretch · #**103** 11-23-2018, 10:11 AM

(Note the gucci signal red North Sea gas style welding overalls - I'm hot to trot - 100% helmet)

^^^^Axial twisting breaks the spot weld free with ease and leaves minimal metal behind with out distorting the structure you're trying to save^^^^

Here's the crud that got cur free =>

I was hoping a piece of scrap Zincor (zinc coated steel) would be just about the right shape - it wasn't in the end - but I thought I'd show this as **** does happen and you have to roll with the punches

Note the fold here needs to be skewy because the outer edge of the panel which goes towards the wheel arch is curved upwards

{This is the metal in the folding machine I've got - you don't necessarily need one of these things - but I like my toys - I'll show a few other methods of folding metal later on in the thread if you like)

Doh! Crap - there you go - about a centimeter too short for the top left hand corner. Instead of patching between the patch I'll re-bend a slightly larger bit of metal.

To be continued (ran out of time today - busy doing other rubbish too)

vwnate1 · #**104** 11-23-2018, 10:17 AM

Very interesting......

Having a sheet metal brake in one's home shop is nice .

Stretch · #**105** 11-23-2018, 10:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwnate1

Very interesting......

Having a sheet metal brake in one's home shop is nice .

It is just a little table top thing - can't bend lengths longer than about 60cm - limited thickness for steel of about 1mm too (trying to go thicker causes grief). I've had to use other methods to bend larger pieces. It was one of those purchases where I thought it was going to be a corner stone of the workshop possibilities and now I sometimes wonder if I can find a way of rigging it up and out of the way as it takes up some precious work bench space...