This is an embarrasing one, but better just 'fess up I guess.

My 88 300E started it's life in upstate NY where it got a a salt bath every winter. A short while back, I lived literally on a beach for a year and the car begin rusting quite severely. My work situation was such that I barely drove the car (it has ~167K miles on it now) so maintenance was.. how you say.. deferred? Yes, I changed the oil but I didn't do an air filter change.

I changed the oil the other day and was getting ready to swap air filters when I noticed that the bolts had rusted. They're looking pretty gnarly/corroded too. I didn't have any rust penetrating stuff on hand, so I tried a little teflon bike lube and let it sit overnight. As you probably guessed, the teflon lube didn't do much.

So now I'm wondering what my options are. I'm trying to keep this as DIY/cost effective as possible. The car's running fine but I'd like to get a new filter in there.

Pics are below. Any thoughts?