Hello everyone,

New to the forum! I've been wanting a classic Benz for years, finally pulled the trigger on a Green 1964 190c. I found it on Craigslist with no price on it. Went and had a peek at her, the gentleman told me about how he had found it at an estate sale in Maryland and other than that had no information on it what so ever. I took a look down in the valve cover expecting it to be very dirty and it was spotless, I assumed the engine had been rebuilt sometime in the not so distant past. I offered 1000$ and took it home.







Rolling it off the trailer the brakes let go, one of the front brake hoses parted. I guess first order of business is to get her cleaned up a little and see if the engine will rotate, also going to need to do something about the rear windshield missing haha!

Not sure what my end goal is with the car, id like to have a daily driver. For now though I would just like to be able to hear it run. This weekend im going to pressure was the front end and the engine compartment. ill post up more pictures and what not as I go along.

Weekend tinkering went well, got the carburetor off and rebuilt.
It's a Weber 34 ICH. Pretty simple to rebuild, not as simple as the SU carburetors on my MGB though ! Although i'd rather not deal with balancing dual carbs, I kinda like only having one again.



I found the original solex in the trunk. Looks as if it has been under water for the past 20 years haha! Found the rest of the battery tray and a bunch of random stuff too.



Pretty gross!!



Got out the pressure washer and cleaned the engine, engine compartment and front end off.



I had the wheels off while I was pressure washing and it seems like the front calipers are stuck. Ill probably end up replacing them anyway. Not sure I want to try my hand at rebuilding them. The wheels were stamped August of 1963, and I found October of 1963 stamped on the oil dipstick.





My gaskets came in I ordered. New rear windshield seal and valve cover gasket. I popped off the valve cover and took a peak at the top end to see how dirty it was before I start my valve adjustment.



Looks pretty clean to me!! In fact a whole lot cleaner than my MGB, makes me think the engine was rebuilt not to long ago.





Next I prepped the rear package deck to get the back window in. I feel like it was busted out quite a while ago. This is before I started, I had just pulled the old seal out and got the chrome out of it.



I pulled up all the vinyl, and what used to be particle board? Lots of surface rust but no holes thankfully.



I took a steel brush and some sandpaper to the rear deck, also busted off a whole bunch of the super hard sealant. For now I rattle can'd it with rust converter until I figure out what I want to do with the car. Hopefully I can get the window in sometime this week. Need to get some sealer and some thin rope.



I decided to flush the radiator and engine out. In the reservoir the coolant still looked green but had an od hue to it. When I disconnected the radiator hoses it quickly turned into a nasty thick white color. I hope the cylinder head is okay and not clogged up or corroded to bad. I flushed everything until it ran clear, which took quite a while. I got a bottle of flush from the auto parts store and a new thermostat and gasket.

Did some cleaning, got the seats cleaned up and all the windows and door panels. I discovered a metric crap ton rust on the passenger side front floorboard, the drivers side only has a small hole back by the seat mount. Ill snap some pictures of the rust later today.

The dash cleaned up pretty nice.



Door panels look pretty good too for their age.





I noticed something extremely odd while I was piddling with the car, the rear door handles are about an 1 inch higher than the front.
I couldn't get a really good picture of it.



Last week I went by a local junkyard and picked up 5 steel wheels. The car has 13 inch wheels on it and I have searched the interwebs for 185/85/13's and they just are not made anymore. Only tires I could find were mostly trailer tires. The passenger tires I could find were expensive for 13's I thought. So I picked up some 14 inch wheels!! Thank you Mercedes for using the same lug pattern for decades!! Only thing is I failed to make sure before I bought them that they were all the same size. I have 2 6x14 wheels and 3 5.5X14 wheels. I honestly don't think half an inch will matter much but ill keep them both on the same axle. Right now my plan is to run Champiro 75 series white walls. Which are the largest white wall tire I could find with out paying an arm and a leg for them. The white stripe on the Champiro's is 1.25 inches. Ill eventually have to get some hub caps that will fit the new wheels.



Example of the tire im buying.



6x14 Wheels date stamped June 1966



5.5x14 Wheels date stamped October 1977

Nice find. Very cool project car. Keep the pics coming. I'll have lots of good reference material when I get my vintage Benz someday......hopefully sooner rather than later!

__________________
'89 260e (212K Mi.), '92 400e (208K Mi.), '92 400e (not a misprint) (146K Mi.), '95 C220, '81 240D--Sold

Looking good!

Run the wider tires up front, not that you will be able to notice any kind of a difference.

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

Rear Windshield Install!!!
So I found a rear window local, and got my gasket from Pelican. I previously removed the old gasket and trim (you have to be !EXTREMELY! careful with the trim that goes into the window seal, its very flimsy). The rear package deck was cleaned and ready to go, along with the lip around the window opening.

SO! I fetched my window, some windex, the seal, thin cord, some paper towels and last but not least, PAM!



I cleaned the window pretty good, had to scrub the edges to get the old grime off and then put the gasket on.



Next I put the trim on. I thought I lost the center little chrome piece that connects the two pieces of trim, I about had a heart attack and spent 20 minutes looking for it. Found it in the ashtray in the back door.
On the back of the trim it looks like a backwards T, that's what seats in the seal, you really have to push on it to get it seated in the channel.



Next I whipped out my PAM and greased up the channel in the seal that seats over the lip in the window opening, then I stuck nylon cord in it. I should have overlapped it further, after install I had about a 3 inch run of gasket that didn't seat and it took me fishing with a screwdriver a few minutes to get it to seat.



Then I just set the rear window up on the opening (it helps if you have 2 people, one to be inside to pull the cord, and another to be outside to push on the window where the cord is being pulled at, helps it seat better). Then pull the cord!



You have to kinda fiddle with it and pull at an angle to get the seal lip to pop over the channel and seat. It helps if you spray the channel with Pam, the cord with Pam, the lip on the car with Pam, and the back side of the gasket that will be sliding over the lip with Pam. I used pam, you can use what ever. I should have picked up the Lemon Pam, it smells nice.



That's it! If you remove the time I spent looking for stuff and fiddling around with the trim on one of the doors (I got sidetracked). It only took about 20 minutes to get it in. I didn't use any sealant because in the future I plan on removing the window again for body work. Most windshield places will charge a boat load of money to do this, and its actually very simple.

Tada!


I had to celebrate my momentous achievement! So out to sushi with some friends.







-Simpler
I actually considered putting them in the back, I don't know if the 1-1/2 inch bigger would cause any issues with the front suspension. The original 13's are only 5 wide I think maybe 4.5 i'd have to look. I guess theres only one way to find out!!!

Brake time!!

I set out to bleed the brakes, after much headache, rusted and holed lines, I ended up replacing the brake line all the way back to the rear wheel cylinders and it is not pretty. The hoses on the back were swelled up so bad no fluid would pass through them, so until my new hoses get here I just bridged the gap with some solid brake line. The fronts bled easily, although the calipers keep hanging up. I intend to replace all hoses and the front calipers, rotors and pads soon.





I also discovered the car is holy crap rusty underneath
Its so bad that when I jack up the back end the doors are very hard to open.

So I was able to drive the car around, after the rest of the brake system is replaced ill throw my new tires on it.





Put my hood ornament back on!



my wheel turned out nice!

I love seeing threads like this, but right now I cannot see ANY of the photos, though I AM LOGGED IN.
I will reboot and try again tomorrow to see if it's my end or what.
o.p. still around ?

Alex

I can't see pictures either. It could be due to off site photo storage.

__________________
1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

Hey all,

I ended up selling the car, the bottom of the car was completely eat up with rust. Not worth saving and I couldn't find a donor fintail in better shape with a bad engine. Ended up selling the car to a gentleman to use for parts.

Also for the life of me I cant remember what picture storage website I used for the pictures here.

__________________
"It's what non-car people don't get. They see all cars as just ton-and-a-half, two tons of wires, glass, metal and rubber. That's all they see. People like you or I know, we have an unshakable belief that cars are living entities..... You can develop a relationship with a car, and that’s just what non-car people don't get."
-Jeremy Clarkson