Hello,
Just wanted to share this. I am in the process of a rolling restoration of my friend's W115 200. It is a 1974 and a condition 3, but needs lots of small stuff doing as the previous owner was not exactly *fastidious* So far I have taken out the instrument cluster and cleaned up all the gauges and lenses, it looks a treat, but the darn quartz clock is, of course, dead Cleaned up the brick red MB-Tex interior, looks a treat and it is one of the few cars where the Tex interior has survived this long.
It needs all new rubber in the suspension, sorting out of the fusebox(corroded contacts) and a replacement front left fender(poorly repaired accident damage). Of course, the Stromberg 175CDT carb has lots of wear in the throttle shaft, but the car starts, runs and stops reasonably well.
Next weekend, we plan to change all the fossilized fuel lines and take alook at the brakes(car pulls to the left) and of course a valve lash adjustment, right now it sounds like a gatling gun at idle
Now if only I could find the stainless steel screw for the headlite chrome surround....
Have a good week

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Nachi11744

If memory serves me well, that vdo clock has an internal fuse which amounts to a tiny wire behind a lump of solder on the back.

Hopefully the fuse box fungus is limitted to the fuses and their brass brackets, so you dont have to disconnect the entire box. Hell, you'd be out of your mind to remove the entire box and be left with a bunch of wires to sort out. Coca-cola works well at cutting through electrolysis corrosion.

Decent stainless screws for headlight doors should be available at hardware store or boat marina. Probably the toughest part of fender replacement, aside from pulling the bumper, is accessing one 9mm bolt at/near the driver's door upper corner area.

Gatling-gun engine sounds scarey. How are the valve seals and guides? Any start up smoke?

hey nachi11744,

I'm going to be tackling the replacement of all rubber bits on the suspension on my 115 soon as well. We should keep tabs of each other through the process. What is your plan of attack?

The front sub-frame mounts and sway bar links seem self explanatory. The upper control arm bushings seem okay, but was considering farming out the lower control arm bushings due to spring compression.
But, I may have to deal with spring compression if I'm going to replace semi-trailing arm bushings in the rear. The shop manual says to remove the whole rear axle to do this.
I need to replace the driveshaft (U-joint slop), do the brakes and check on the wheel bearings and repack of course.
While have the driveshaft rebuilt while the rear axle is out.

My main problem is where to start!

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63 220S W111
76 300D W115
2013 VW JSW TDI M6

previously-
73 280 SEL 4.5
86 300E 5 speed
2010 VW Jetta TDI M6

Hello,
My worksheet looks like this:
1.ALL fuel lines and brake hoses
2.ALL front suspension bushes, subframe mounts, tie rods and steering damper.
3.ALL rear suspension bushes.
4.ALL driveline stuff
5.ALL bodywork(farmed out to bodyshop)
Front springs are not too difficult on a W115, I managed to R&R front springs on my own car with three normal screw type compressors as the spring is relatively *short* and can be levered back in as there is a convenient ledge on the lower control arm that allows this, though I would not recommend this method to novices. I think the screw type compressors will work on the rear springs as well, though better use the heavy duty variety.

The VDO clock is a quartz type on all MBs after 1972. I have experience with a successful repair on my former 1966 VW Karmann-Ghia's mechanical 6 volt VDO clock, there the fuse had cracked and I bridged it with fine copper wire, cleaned up the *points* with croucos cloth and then spent the next week adjusting the thing to run without gaining or losing time, but the final *fix* that made it run 100% reliably was when the car was converted to 12 volts
The quartz type cannot be repaired as opening it breaks three fine wires that connect to the stepper motor and an internal gear is usually broken as well. My plan is to buy a junkyard panel that has the mechanical clock and repair that to install in the car's panel and toss the quartz clock in the nearest trashcan

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Nachi11744