weekend Wrenching

[alabbasi]

Good old practical classics, I've reading that since I was 17.

[JohnM.]

Originally Posted by sjefke

That rust on his 280CE is typical for restoration if you lived in UK or Northern Europe.

Exactly. What we consider "saveable" here in the US and what someone in the UK thinks is saveable are very far apart.

[Tomguy]

Originally Posted by alabbasi

I suspect that the rust is caused by salty slush that's being carried in on people's feet as they enter the car and then embedding itself into the carpet.

This is a much bigger cause of rust in a car than people think. Ever seen a Jeep rust? It's typically from the inside out, and usually due to moisture and/or salt that got trapped under the rubberized-bottom carpet. Made worse in areas where there is foam soundproofing below the carpet.

I still haven't done any "Weekend wrenching" in a while thanks to my pneumonia. I was hoping to go to the NYC auto show Thursday, but that may not happen

[alabbasi]

This weekend was spent working on the 300D. The A/C blower motor was locked up so I bought a replacement which I mounted on last week but it seemed to jam on something and was not blowing air.

I took it apart today and turned it around. It went in easily and now blows cold air. In the process, I managed to develop a live short on the wiper and radio so I pulled out my trusty multimeter and re-wired the radio to solve that issue.

It's nice to get the A/C going on this car.

The rusty 280CE is intimidating the heck out of me. I fear that cutting the floors and the rockers will cause the car to flex out of shape so i'm now debating what to do.

[alabbasi]

OK now that i have the new floors and a good picture of the rust, I need some advice.

Here is a standard picture of the floor.



This is what I have:









My concern is that if I cut the floor and the rocker off, will the car collapse given that it's unibody and also a pillarless design?

[mercmad6.3]

Originally Posted by sjefke

If you have ever read Practical Classics, you know where Al is coming from. That rust on his 280CE is typical for restoration if you lived in UK or Northern Europe. But it is still a lot of work. Always more than you expect.

Good luck,

Bert

I read it too, in fact one of the former journo's is an old mate (Will Holman) .We have rotten cars here too but you have to consider what is worth saving in terms of rarity ,real value, family connection, or what is basically a rusty old mercedes which could be used as a donor for a better car. I am rebuilding a coupe here which is a https://picasaweb.google.com/mercmad6.3/MercedesW111220SECoupelot rustier than normal. I have kept the roof,doors,lids and sides. There is no chassis what so ever.

The cheapest coupe I have seen here is a rusty 300SE for $4750 which is destined to be parted out because it's just too rusty to consider restoring despite it's rarity. (RHD,very low production numbers ) so it makes sense for me to rebuild the one I have. In Al's case i am sure if he really wants a 280CE he will find a better one in the USA easily.

[alabbasi]

Ron

280CE's never made it to the US, we got the 280C. I guess I can find a rust free shell, but I now have all of the sheet metal, so why not? Maybe i'll learn a thing or two?

[mercmad6.3]

Originally Posted by alabbasi

OK now that i have the new floors and a good picture of the rust, I need some advice.







[img]http://w108.org/backup/floaor2.jpg]



?

You are dead right. You need to brace the body by welding temporary braces diagonally across the doors and the body. Because you dont have a chassis rig (car-0-liner pull bench etc ) this is the only way you will prevent the car from distorting hen you remove the rusty bits. I just use scrap for this part and i measure,measure and measure again. You should also get the car up on solid stands so that it's not sitting on it's springs . The body needs to be as solidly mounted as you can get it.
If it is on it's springs you will distort the body once you remove the sill section and this will appear as a wavy roof and/or the doors and screens wont fit properly.

[Mike D]

Changed out the rear sub frame on the '74 280C. It was not a fun way to spend Saturday. Started at 6:00 AM and was done by noon. Over all, I'd rate it as a "7" on the PITA scale. It's only about a "5" on technical ability but it's about a 9 on inconvenience. I did it in the work shop with the car sitting on jack stands. I think every bit of dirt from underneath fell into either my eyes or ears.

[GGR]

I spent the last two days on the road delivering the 3.5 engine that was on my Coupe which I sold to a MB enthousiast in Atlanta and getting one of these early 5.0 out of a 450 SLC 5.0 that I bought in Fort Myers FL. It sat in a barn for two years and has fodder on it everywhere but it is an original 88.000 miles engine. I already have the 4 speed manual trans out of 350 SL that I am going to mate with it which I also got in Florida a few months ago. The whole thing will then go in my Pagoda. I'm debating on keeping the whole thing much simpler than on my Coupe where I went programmable fuel & spark, AMG camshafts, 5 speed manual, poly-bushings all round etc. I see a more tamed application with a four speed, smaller rear end ratio, and keeping engine stock with K-jet. I shall see. I first need to finish the Coupe.

[alabbasi]

Gael, I can understand the AMG cam part of this deal but to me, setting up EFI sounds like a sensible idea. CIS suffers from reliability issues these days. I've yet to see a perfectly running CIS car, some may run good, but they will be a little lumpy at idle etc.

Why not just do that conversion and be done?

[GGR]

Well well well, I'm really debating. On the one hand, I already have most of the hardware for EFI using D-jet stuff as I did on the Coupe. But I would still have to buy the calculator, relay board and WB O2 sensor plus a few other stuff that will cost at least $800. And there is quite some work involved in adapting stuff here and there. In addition, and though quite reliable, if something goes wrong with the electronics you remain stranded on the side of the road.

On the other hand, I have this CIS system complete and original on the engine, plus another one identical and complete from the other engine I converted to EFI. So I guess I will have enough parts to make one good system.

My problem is mainly that I don't know these CIS systems and I don't know what to expect in terms of faulty parts and how much it costs to rebuild/replace them. I hear they are very simple, reliable and bulletproof. But I also hear quite some frustration from some users.

I would be very interested in your experience with these CIS systems, what goes wrong with them and what is involved it putting them right. Keep in mind that the version I'm dealing with is a very early euro version with no O2 sensors nor electronics.

Thanks!

[alabbasi]

The system is relatively simple and consumable parts (injectors, fuel pump etc) are much cheaper then D-Jet. It's an old system and the two most expensive items to repair are the fuel distributor round thing behind the air intake that feeds fuel into the injectors and the warm up regulator. When these go bad, you generally get a miss at idle or it could run super rich and be unadjustible.

They are expensive to replace and rebuilt units have so so reputation.

Also CIS engines seem to give horrible fuel mileage so I don't think this system makes use of the engine well enough.

[GGR]

From my experience with the Coupe the CIS system surely doesn't exploit the engine to its full capacity, mainly because the air flow sensor requires very docile camshaft profiles. On the other hand, EFI is so flexible that it's a waste to use it with stock camshatfs and stock ignition. CIS doesn't like aggressive camshafts and aggressive camshats don't like stock ignition as they waken up the engine way past 6000 rpm where stock ignition is starting to lack seriously. This is why I fitted the EDIS wasted spark ignition system on my Coupe. I am absolutely thrilled by the set-up I have on the Coupe and the little I drove it before taking the trans out again to sort out a few issues indicated a very promising end result: roughly it accelerates like my euro 6.3 did up to 4000-4500 rpm (where the 6.3 started running out of steam) and goes on even stronger after that up to 6500-7000 rpm. Of course that kind of power also requires some work on the chassis, brakes and suspension, which I all did on the Coupe. The only downside are the polybushings that give a great precision at middle and high speed and are needed given the set-up I have to be able to exploit ffully the power train I have. But they are a bit harsh when driving over degraded suraces at low speeds. Not really what one would expect while driving an MB.

I just wanted to keep it simpler and easier on the Pagoda and I know that if I fit EFI I will end-up doing the same as on the Coupe.

[alabbasi]

Well then that settles it, you need to install the EFI