One thing I have noticed-some 108 4.5's have one piece aluminum finned oil pans and some have steel pans-anyone know why?

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Tony H
W111 280SE 3.5 Coupe
Manual transmission

Past cars:
Porsche 914 2.0
'64 Jaguar XKE Roadster
'57 Oval Window VW
'71 Toyota Hilux Pickup Truck-Dad bought new
'73 Toyota Celica GT

I talked with the powder coater and he may have the sway bar done either today or tomorrow.

In the front wheelwells, there was a residue left after I had power washed them earlier this summer. When I was cleaning up the sway bar areas, I had overspray of the Simple Green on the left front wheelwell. When I wiped it off, I could see that the residue came off relatively easily. Today I worked on the wheelwell. The rear part is textured and the combination of Simple Green and a brush cleaned it up nicely. I also cleaned the topside of the upper control arm. Looks much better.













With that wheelwell finished, I moved over to the right one. Big difference here as there was a heavy black substance covering most of it. I ran out of time to complete it but did get a section clean.

Any speculation as to why the right side was loaded up so much worse that the left?

Nope. The right rear has some of this same material in it, but not as severe. It is a petroleum based material that comes off with the use of WD40...and lots of elbow grease! You guys should all be buying stock in Scott paper towels.

Some of this black material is POR15. Earlier in this thread I discussed using some to cover some rust resulting from the battery. Once I have it cleaned up, I will paint that area with the same paint I used in the engine bay.

I was thinking maybe cosmoline but it never got that dark. I did new car prep for a Mercedes dealer in the late 70s and they sometimes got that stuff on a little thick in places. It would take me several hours to get it off in engine compartments and wheel wells.

I am very familiar with cosmoline from my past experiences with cleaning up Porsche's. It is particularly fun removing cosmoline from engines, transmissions, etc after they have gone through heat cycles. And I think that is what was in the other wheelwell and is in this wheelwell towards the rear. This black material seems more like undercoating. I am not finding anything unusual under the black stuff as far as paintwork. So I have no idea why it is there.

Mysteries like this make it interesting working on old cars.

My sway bar is in the oven as I write this so I have to wait about an hour or so for it to cool off before I can pick it up. Literally, it will be fresh out of the oven!!!

It took me about two hours to clean up the right front wheelwell. Upon doing so I discovered more issues caused by the battery. I had previously applied some POR15 to parts of this wheelwell. I now have some more areas to coat. Once it dries, I will paint it to match the body color.

I had run out of POR15. According to Google, the population of the town where I live, Rockwell, NC, is 2144. Would you believe that we have Autozone, Advance and NAPA auto parts stores with an O'Reilly's under construction. And none of them had POR15.

There is an old time parts store in Salisbury that caters more to the trade than to retail. A call to them found that they did have it in stock. My wife's gallery is across the street from them. So she had the honor of visiting an auto parts store. It is in a very old building near the train station. She thought the place would be a mess but was pleasantly surprised to see how organized it was.


















I paid the powder coater his $10 for doing the sway bar and installed it this afternoon.













This project is a perfect example of how one thing leads to another when working on an old car. It began as a simple job of replacing the bushings. I expected to remove the sway bar, clean it up and re-install it. Discovering rust on the bar led to two trips to the powder coater. Cleaning up the area around the sway bar led to cleaning the wheelwells. Cleaning the wheelwells led to having to do some painting. Jobs on old car are rarely simple or quick.

Yes one thing leads to another...But you are having a hell of a good time . And your post has continued to be very entertaining .

First thing to do today was apply the POR15. After letting it dry overnight, I will paint those area with the body color paint tomorrow.




Next I cleaned the rear wheelwells. Neither of them had any of the undercoating that I found in the right front wheelwell. Cleaned up pretty good but I could not get everything out of the textured areas. Some of the areas that look dirty in the textured area are some spots that have the paint worn away caused by throwing up debris since the car was new.








The new oil pan arrived the other day and I installed it today. I always love it when they place these stickers on the parts. Lots of fun to get them off. It is a Bilstein part made in Italy?? The new one has the smaller drain plug compared to the original one. The 35 year Mercedes dealer mechanic said the oil pickup was close to the bottom of the pan and I you can see that in the photo below. That is why he thought I should do something with the pan.

Honestly I never liked how large the old plug was. Oil was almost guaranteed to overflow any drip pan I had. I had to lift it up high enough to fit a bucket underneath! It's nice to see they changed that.

I don't have access to the parts diagram book any more, since it went with my car when I sold it. Shouldn't there be a screen on the pickup tube?

Your progress on the car is incredible. I really think you're doing a great service to that car and having one hell of a good time in the process. For a car that's appreciating in value rather quickly, combined with your work, I would expect you can probably sell it in 4 years for 3 to 4 times what you paid for it!

__________________
Current:
2021 Charger Scat Pack Widebody "Sinabee"
2018 Durango R/T

Previous:
1972 280SE 4.5
2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited "Hefe", 1992 Jeep Cherokee Laredo "Jeepy", 2006 Charger R/T "Hemi"
1999 Chrysler 300M - RIP @ 221k

Thanks. I am having a good time and it does feel good to know that I am making a good car better. It was about time in its life to have someone like me own it.

I don't know about the screen but I did find something interesting today on the inside of the old oil pan. The 35 year mechanic I met was concerned that the old oil pan was dented because he said the pick-up was very low. There is a faint outline of the four feet on the pickup on the bottom of the oil pan. From day one this car has had great oil pressure. I didn't see any difference today when I drove the car.







Yesterday evening I discovered that the POR15 had dried in the right front wheelwell. Using the same paint I had used in the engine compartment, I added a coat of body color paint. Not a perfect match but it looks much better than it did.

Car Photo Day!!

I have been talking with a gentleman for the past week or so about a 1982 380SL. He lives in Winston-Salem, NC. Every second Saturday there is a Winston-Salem Cars & Coffee held at Reynolda Village. Reynolda is the name the Reynolds family, of tobacco fame, gave to their family home. It is now open to the public and is a beautiful home filled with period furniture and artwork. Reynolda Village is on the Reynolds property and houses unique shops. So it is a great place to take your wife to a car show!!!

We met, I looked over the car, drove it and decided it was not what i wanted. The price was attractive (asking $5300 OBO) but it had more needs than I want to address and he did not have any history on the car. One encouraging point in its favor was that it had been converted to the dual row chains. In the photo below you will see his car parked next to what turned out to be an '81 380SL that also happened to be for sale. It's owner was a gentleman I met a couple weeks ago at the Mercedes show. This one had a motor from a 500SL. I drove it and it was a better car than the blue one. Again no history but this one did have fewer needs and the body was better. I think i will keep looking for my next project car.



The owner of the blue car had never attended this event and we spent the next couple hours together looking at the cars. He has owned a Porsche 944 in his past and thinks he would like to buy an air cooled 911. Since I have had lots of experience with these cars, as we looked at the 911's there, I discussed the pros and cons to the various models. If he is going to get an air cooled 911, he better do it soon as the prices are still very high.

One of the first cars we came across was the 240Z. What a spectacular car. One of the best cars there.






The 240D in these photos was sandwiched between the 240Z and the Ford GT.






This 1960 Jag sedan was also very nice as was the XKE.











I asked the owner of this car why he didn't bring his "big" car!!! 1960 Desoto.



This was a replica of a 1935 Morgan but very nicely done. I would not be looking forward to adding coolant the reservoir was located in the passenger footwell.















Very nice TVR.



I love these Alfa Duetto's. I could see one of these in my garage someday. In case you are wondering why I don't have a closeup what looks like a Ferrari GTO in the background, it is because it is a replica on a Datsun 280Z chassis.







Among the many nice cars there, this 356A stood out. According to the card on the windshield, all of the restoration work was done by the owner. He is very skilled.







This Diablo was a good representative for the exotic Italian cars present.




This 635 was very nice and had a number of performance mods including a fuel cell in the trunk.







A beautiful XKE coupe leaving the venue.




What kind of car show would it be it it did not have a contingent of three Delorean's.





It was well worth the 45 mile drive on a beautiful Saturday morning. Around 60 degrees when I arrived and mid 70's when I left. Windows down driving on the way back. By the way, those two 380SL owners would not want to run me for pink slips!!! With the new injectors and the throttle bushings, the car just purrs down the highway. My wife had a reception for an art show at her gallery last night. I parked the Mercedes in front and had a number of people ask about the car. One of them is a BMW guy doing a restoration on a E30 convertible for his wife. After looking it over, he told me he would like to have a ride in it someday. I replied that now would be a good time and we took a 20 minute drive through city streets, some backroads and a short stretch on an interstate. He was so impressed with how the car went down the road that he said if he had the garage space, he would make me an offer. I was glad he enjoyed the ride!!

There really aren't many sedans of any era that were more pleasing to drive or ride in than a 4.5 W108.
Have you had a chance to load it up with people to see how it behaves. That is what surprised me about the 4.5s I was around in the 70s. You could put four or five people in them and they didn't droop at the rear nearly as much as I thought they would.
Good luck on your next project.
Brad

I noticed that your new cowl moulding is just like mine and it has three notches that were not in the original moulding.Wouldn't this mean that vapors from the engine could leak into the cabin?