Drowning in the Desert part two

Considering going to a Pertronix system to possibly get rid of the Transitorized setup. Also as I mentioned prior this car has been sitting for five years, I would really appreciate some general tips on starting her up again, I really dont want to make a bad situation worse, Pete the car is a 280S with twin carbs, this car also has less then 500 miles since last tune before THE FLOOD.
If the spark box is dead will the Pertronix set up no longer use it.
Thanks for everyones input, i am looking at this car in a whole new light now, of course that may change if it starts to drain wallet and rate faster then the wheels are turning.

Ps there are two little black boxes with some skemo type drawing on them and near that is a 5x5 finned alum box, could you experts ID them for me which is the spark box? what is the function of the other black boxes I think these are the possible culprits due to there location and the depth of the water on that day

[Rackne]

Mine said TRW for Mercedes Benz on the case. It was replaced by a Crane Cams XR-700 Fireball (around $100 maybe less) a call to the 1-800 number straightened out which hook up chart to use for my application. Hope this helps.

[psfred]

The finned aluminum box is the spark box (no nasty plastic like Ford!). The others are relays, probably.

Check all the connections for corrosion. I'm sure the distributor is dry by now, but check anyway. You can spray the inside of the cap with WD-40 (this is what it was designed for, but the way -- water dispersant formula # 40) and then wipe it out. Take a piece of paper (linen is best, 25% cotton second choice) and trap it between the points and pull out. This should wipe any crud out -- if the points don't make contact, there won't be a signal for the transistor unit to switch the coil, so no spark.

Don't diss the MB transistor ignition, the aftermarkets are exactly the same thing, only not as good, usually. They often use a higher voltage coil, but not the quality of Benz.

Make sure you have spark before you go any further trying to start it.

As for starting goes -- take the plugs out, make sure they are clean and gapped properly. Drain the gas and oil, refill sump with good quality oil. Put a small amount of oil in each cylinder, then turn engine over by hand until you get oil on the valve train. This prevents starting the engine dry, terrible on bearings, etc. Replace plugs after you have oil up top -- much easier to roll it over with no plugs in it. Make sure you rotate in in the normal direction.

Get all the old gasoline out of the tank if you can, at least drain what will come out and flush with a half gallon or so of fresh fuel. You can pull the lower (larger diameter) line back by the tank to drain it. Take it off the body line, not the tank -- you can push it up to stop the fuel flow, down to let it run that way.

You need to get rid of all that dead fuel -- it will stink something awful, and will not fire worth diddly. Put in a couple gallons of good fuel in after you re-attach the fuel line. I had just about a pint left from maybe half a tank when mine was parked, didn't evaporate from the drain pan out in the sun. More like diesel fuel than gas, I suppose.

Since the carbs are also surely full of dead gas, use a small amount of starting fluid to fire it off after you get it oiled, or you can use WD-40 again to run it. It will sputter and choke until you get good fuel into the carbs. It may take a while to get any fuel at all in there, since they may have gone dry, too, and the fuel line and pump will have dead gas in them.

Once it runs reasonably well, check for oil and gas leaks -- carb gaskets dry out with no fuel on them, and will shrink. If this is the case, you will probably need to rebuild the carbs to cure the leaks. Put a bottle of injector cleaner in the first tank of fuel, and drive it down pretty far before refueling.

Peter