Introduction / Question
 

Hi everybody,

since about 6 weeks, I am the proud owner of a 1972 280SE 4.5 (nicknamed "Herr Mueller") and I found this extremely helpful forum a week ago. You guys do a great job in maintaining this forum, big compliments :)

Unfortunately, the state of my car is such that you will hear more from me ;). Of course, I also plan to actively participate in helping others as you guys do (I already proudly passed the common 108 initiation rites - the exchange of the heater levers ... but now comes the real 108 nightmare - the blower motor)

But this car is also meant to be a time warp back to the times when I was restoring old cars during high school when I still lived in Germany. Back then, I specialized in the German post-war microcars with a maximum of 600cc and some mind blasting 25 hp. The most famous in the US was the BMW Isetta, but in Germany there were a lot of fascinating cars like that ... a Messerschmidt that looked like a plane cockpit or the Zuendapp with one door and opening to the front one to the back, and the engine (250cc) in the middle ...

However, back to my Benz, my first question is whether there are other forum members located in the San Francisco Bay area to help with questions like a good junk yard or good workshops / body shops in general. I am located in Saratoga, South Bay.

Thanks

Stefan

Welcome to the board Stefan.

There are a number of 4.5 owners on the board, but I'm not sure how many in the Bay Area. I know there have been some threads about good salvage/parts yards and some good mechanics too.

Good job on the heater levers. Not too bad if you take your time and the finished product is great, having heat at your finger tips :D. Do a search on "blower motor", Aaron has posted the how to a couple times, I think both the book version and the shortcut (for non-purists). The shortcut saves a lot of time and trouble, but requires some cutting I think.

You could also just spend an ungodly amount of time reading through ALL of the posts in the Vintage forum, going back a couple three years. Have fun.

Count on the blower motor to be a 12 hour job. If you take the short cut (which I personally would not do, but mentioned it because they actually told us about it in Mercedes school :eek: )
you need to score the heater box, which will then allow you to go in and remove the blower through the opening you have made. Then you'll need to re-affix the cut out piece to the heater box.

P.S.--Mike, how's the 560SEL been since resurrection? Interested to hear!

Hi Aaron, since getting the 560 back on the road I have logged over 10K miles, nearly all trouble free. Had an A/C tensioner pully go south and a torque compensator link come loose. Those have been the only problems. Everything else has been a "for the fun of it" repair.

Best mileage I've gotten has been over 20MPG, average is right at 14.8 combined. The car is a rocket. Reupholstered the front seats using excellent leather from a 420SEL, since they were heater equipped I had to transplant my heaters. Fun time hand stitching 28 pleats. Check out that project here .

Hi Stefan

Welcome to the club, there is a lot of info here to read and it should prove invaluable.

Check your "user cp" for a private message from me.