Road Trip with Ebay purchase!!

[Richard Wooldridge]

Hello all,
I recently purchased a 1979 450SL on Ebay for the winning bid of $4000.00, located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Since I live in Washington State about 25 miles north of Portland, Oregon, I decided to turn the pickup and delivery of the car into an adventure! Several people have expressed interest in my trip home, so I thought I'd post the highlights here for all you 450SL lovers to enjoy. You can take a look at the car by viewing ebay item #4599791753.

So, I took the red-eye flight from Portland, OR to Fort Lauderdale, left around 11PM on a Thursday night, got to Ft Lauderdale around 10AM Friday AM. The seller, a used car dealer, picked me up at the airport and we actually got to his place of business around noon. After signing some papers and giving some cash, they gave me the keys, and I headed for Augusta, GA, where I wanted to visit my wife's family over the weekend. After going about 1 mile I decided it must have a bad wheel bearing, and by the time I went 10 miles or so I decided it was on the front driver's side. I pulled off I95 at the Orland exit, found a NAPA store and purchased two inner and two outer wheel bearings, they said there was a shop about a mile away that could do the work for me. Well, when I got to the shop they were just closing for the day and said they might fit it in on the following Tuesday... so I went down the road to the Walmart store, purchased some tools, a small hydraulic jack, cleaning rags, grease, etc, and drove around behind the store, pulled off the left front wheel and discovered the outer race had metal bits in it. Unfortunately the bearings NAPA sold me were the wrong size! So I cleaned it up, put it back together, and went back to NAPA with the right bearing numbers, and they exchanged for the correct ones. After cleaning the debris out of the bearing and adjusting it, the old bearing didn't sound nearly as bad, so I kept on driving, and got into Georgia, where I stopped for the night. Saturday AM I drove on into Augusta to my wife's brother's place, who has air tools, jacks, etc, and changed the bearing. I had also noticed that the radio didn't work, the heater didn't work, and I could smell a sulpuric acid smell... we checked the alternator output, it was at 18 volts! We made a trip to brother-in-law Sam's favorite auto parts store and ordered both a regulator and another alternator for Sunday AM, then went back to his house and found that the radio problem was no voltage on the keep-alive wire. It was attached to the hazard switch and the hazards didn't work either, just a fuse that was popped out of it's holder. The heater was another matter altogether - it was partially disabled, only the AC worked... I decided that since I was going I-20 to LA I wouldn't need it for most of the trip. Sunday AM I replaced the regulator, and the alternator was fine again. So, after a nice visit, Monday AM found me headed west on I-20. I drove about 1100 miles, stopping at Eastland, Texas for the night. Tuesday AM I got up to a 23 degree morning, and me with No Heat! I started off, but the speedometer started shrieking after about 5 minutes, no doubt due to the cold weather, and I had to keep going for about an hour or so until I came to a small town that had an auto parts store where I could buy a socket and T handle to pull the steering wheel so I could remove the instrument cluster and lube the speedometer. (My Walmart tool box is getting fuller by now, and I lost an hour what with the repair and all) With the noise gone and a warmup breakfast at the local golden arches, I once again headed west, arriving in North Hollywood at 12:30AM (around 1500 miles on Tuesday, but I went through two time zones, gained two hours) My brother had loaned me a gps mouse for my laptop and I used "Copilot", so it told me where to go, gave me speed and miles to destination info, etc... so I was able to drive straight to the uphostery shop I had made arrangements with to have a new interior installed in the car. After locating the shop in North Hollywood I went looking for a hotel, but due to some awards show they were ALL BOOKED UP! I finally found one at an exorbitant rate, and got a good 3 hours of sleep, arriving back at the German Auto Tops, Inc shop by 8AM. They had the new seat covers ready to go, and a shop up the street lined up to install both the covers and new carpeting. They worked hard on the car, and it was ready around 7:30PM, so I headed North on I-5 over grapevine, stopping at the Stockdale exit for the night. I drove on home to rainy Washington on Thursday, got home around 6:30PM. The car ran fine except for the few problems I mentioned, and I put a little over 4100 miles on it. In retrospect, it would have been cheaper to have had it trucked out, but I had a nice drive, and got the upholstery done at a great shop, so I guess it all worked out. So, I actually spent around $5700 for the car including the upholstery job, but I now have a new interior and the exterior looks very good also. I don't feel the repairs necessary were out of line, the dealer had spent the money for a "minor tuneup" on the car, it had new belts, oil change, etc... and they probably didn't drive it enough to notice the wheel bearing problem. I know the radio originally worked, as it was shown on in one of the Ebay photos, so probably when someone was cleaning the car they knocked the fuse out of the holder, the right kick plate partially covers that particular fuse... I imagine the alternator regulator probably took a fatal hit if they jumped the car to start it at some time. By the way, it turns out that the car was a California car, only went to Florida in 2003, has no rust at all, and is in very good condition overall! I ended up installing an Unwired Tools digital servo upgrade and fixing some vacuum leaks and now the heater works.
So that was Richard's excellent Road Trip! I hope you found it entertaining!

Regards,
Richard Wooldridge
'82 300D/4.3L V6/T700R4 conversion
'79 450SL
'75 280C

[el Miguel]

Very entertaining! Aren't road trips fun. Mine wasn't near as long as yours but I flew to Miami to pick up my 500SL. I was nervous driving back to NC listening for the slightest unusual noise and constantly watching the water temp and oil pressure guages. No problems. Made it back safe and sound.
Mike

[jjrodger]

Great tale, I enjoyed it. 4,100miles! Our tiny island won't let me go much more than 600 before I reach the sea at the other end.

Thanks!

[callen]

Taking a road trip in an "older" car is very exciting...you never know what will happen...and sometimes it does. Two years running I drove my 89 735il from Houston TX to Vermont.....with fingers crossed whole time. Never let me down though.

[hanno]

Did this last year with a new to me 83 280SL. Only 2000 miles though ;-) My wife came with me, she got to drive while I was in the "uncomfortable" seat. When I drove, she searched for the most outlandish tourist traps. Never did find the world's biggest ball of twine. We had a ball!

[elau]

Great story!!! And thanks for sharing. What a great way to bond with your new car.

[ericdee]

Congratulations!!! Thanks for the tale, Sounds like you have a great car.

[jcyuhn]

There's a motel in Eastland? I didn't think there was anything in Eastland, or Thurber, or...

- JimY

[deanyel]

Great story!! Good thing you had a mechanic along. BTW, in your future writings you may want to look into this concept of a paragraph. Just kidding, very nice story.

[ArgeMan]

That's a great story, Richard. And how unique that the car was in better shape when you pulled it into your garage - do you have an internship program? We could all learn from hanging out with you in your garage.

Regards,

___________

Max.
'80 450 SL

[banjobob]

And I thought I was proud of myself for driving my '80 450sl from Tucson to San Antonio, about 850mi. I did however get it up to 105mph according to the GPS. Hats off to you for a great experience.

[suginami]

I'd love to see pics of the new interior.

[Richard Wooldridge]

Hi there,
It's been raining here in SW Washington for 40 days and 40 nights, it seems!
At any rate, as soon as we get a reasonably nice day I'll take some pix and post them. The seats look just like OEM new, and are Bamboo color, just like the old ones.
I'm thinking of replacing the soft top... the shop that I got the seats from makes the soft tops that are sold in the Performance Products catalogs, and I watched them making one. They have what amounts to a big CNC machine that cuts out the material for each top individually - it has a huge table and a cutter that is controlled on X and Y axis by computer control. Fascinating to watch it cut a top, and it only takes a few minutes. They get all their material from Germany so they are made just like the OEM tops. They said they are sending them all over the world now, even to Germany! At any rate, the guy suggested I have him make one in a rust color that he said looks real good with the Red color the car has. He said the "correct" top is actually brown, which he could do, but he (and my wife) think the rust color looks better. Any opinions?

Regards,
Richard Wooldridge
'82 300D/4.3L V6/T700R4 conversion
'79 450SL
'75 280C

[suginami]

Did the interior shop get the leather hydes from GAHH?

[Walrus]

Originally Posted by Richard Wooldridge

... He said the "correct" top is actually brown, which he could do, but he (and my wife) think the rust color looks better. Any opinions?

The PO changed the top out on my red, 1988 560sl a couple of years befor eI bought the car. The new black top looks ok, but having seen a red 560 with the original, brown top, I wish he had replaced it with brown (I looked at my build data, and my car shipped with brown also). I can't imagine rust, but I can recommend brown. It looked much better than the black (especially with palomino interior).