PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - View Single Post

cgoodwin · #6 04-09-2004, 01:55 PM

I am afraid to say that all parts are NOT so easy to find, I recently was blessed with a 1964 220SB with a burnt valve.... The head came off and although the valves, guides and seals were only two days wait, the original seals are poor at best and we decided to use modern seals. This required the machinist to modify the valve guides, then the new seals hung on the inner springs, we found that 280SL springs would clear but hung on the outer springs, we dug through a box of assorted mercedes springs and found a set that would clear the inner springs and still fit the retainers and had the same spring pressure.

All this took weeks as a working shop has in-and-out work that pays the bills, the machinist has the same issue and I waited on him for about a month to custom make the guides - work he could do again in an afternoon but there are no specs to go by when fitting 1990 stem seals to 1964 guides.

The long and short of it is that working on vintage cars is not "easy" and parts are not "easy", although waiting months to get it in or diagnosed is simply bad business, waiting on parts or machine work is to be expected and many of the parts seem to be made of "Unobtainium". We recently spent weeks looking for a reliable carb specialist to rebuild a set of 1974 BMW 3.0CS Zenith carbs and never did find anyone as these carbs were junk when new, we fitted a set of Webers and carefully packed the original junk in a box in the trunk for the day when they have enough value as originals to be completely reworked and have parts custom made for them.

If you drive an antique you can expect to wait for things to get done - it's just how it is unless you want to learn to do it yourself. Personally I drive a 1968 BMW R60/2 in the summer and spend winters sourcing parts and solving problems. My 1975 450SLC rally car has the worlds worse fuel injection and requires constant work, my 1974 BMW 2002 has constant carb tuning to be done and my 1972 911 Targa has dual triple bore webers....More work, but as the Zen monks say "the art is in the whole process, not the result" Learn to do a lot of the work yourself and enjoy it, hell I even enjoy valve adjustments and washing my cars, it can be a kind of meditation.

Good luck and have patience....And have a talk with your mechanic and explain your concerns nicely, if you keep the car you are going to have a long relationship with him.

Chris