JiveTurkey's Garage

[JiveTurkey]

Hello friends in the vintage forum. Its been a while since I've posted anything at all but I've been trying to read the new posts when they come up. Suffice it to say that 2011 has been an odd year for me. Its a long story but I'll give you the concise version of it.

In february of this year my 76 year old grandfather left my granny up here all alone to die. He ran out (they were married for fifty four years!!!) with a 36 year old oxycontin addicted prostitute down to florida. At the time grams had a broken back. I quit my job and moved out to the farm (22 miles from my house) to take care of granny and all the **** that needs to be done daily on a farm. On the plus side, the giant garage i used for Wilma a year ago is now mine! ALL MINE! Grandma is having a rough go of it. She's eighty one years old, and this is the year she stopped driving. Shes largely unable to care for herself, so I cook the meals and take care of her as best I can.

Needless to say there has been slow progress on the Merc fleet. In september I was going to buy a forum members w116 so I flew out to Dallas, but I ended up not purchasing it. I did however finally get to meet Alabassi. Holy **** can he cook an amazing Lamb Curry!!!

"Mert" the 280 (wolf walkers old car) is in GREAT shape right now. I havent had to touch the bloody Solex at all and it still fires up on the first try every morning I need it to. I attribute most of this to Wolf Walkers incredible talent tuning the carb, and partly to Leaded gas. Both of my 114's really love leaded gas. Right now I'm replacing the windshield on Mert, and doing a few other little odds and ends on him.

"Karl" the 300SD is damn near ready for the road again. In april I took out the injection pump because the shaft that attached to the ALDA had broken, sticking the rack in the low enrichment position. The result? A car that would do no more than 997rpm. I did actually fix things by removing the top cover to the old IP, welded a shaft to the broken part, replaced the top cover, and then clamped locking pliers on the "new" shaft to keep it in the "up" position. This actually worked brilliantly for six months. Anyway, my new IP from Phil sat on my workbench from April until just the other day. Once I time it the SD will be back on the road and mightier than ever.

"Wilma" (everyones favorite Green Coupe) has been sitting patiently in the garage since march when her fuel pump and fuel pump relay blew. Wilma is on the back burner for now.

In other news, I bought a fintail. No really, I did. It's a '63 220b out in California that I found on a popular auction site. I have to arrange shipping but it looks like a nice clean old beast. The heater core has a leak and is bypassed. How bad is it to replace a heater core on a w111? I also added a Hobart Air Force 500i plasma cutter to my arsenal. Holy **** does it make cutting metal fun!! I dont think I'm ever going to use my double cut shears, my tin snips, or my die grinder to cut metal ever again!

I'll be posting all my automotive escapades in this thread from now on, except for highly specific questions which I will ask in a seperate thread. That way if someone is searching for that particular issue they won't have to dig through this thread.


Heres a picture of the aforementioned fintail that I took from the guys ebay listing. No thats not me in the car.


The SD is starting to look distinctly annoyed. Its been sitting there with the hood up since april.


And last, here's my 280 "Mert" looking very happy in his berth.