A few moments of temporary insanity, and a 1980 240D becomes mine! - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

vstech · #16 04-16-2010, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dropnosky

almost done with the worst of the rust on the driver side. inner fender and foot well had to be completely reconstructed, but the worst is taken care of in the corner.
Gotta do the floors now and pull the driver door to get that last little piece of the rot in this area, but its raining!

some before and after pics-

nice job!
can you come to my house?

JB3 · #17 04-16-2010, 09:22 AM

only if you sign an affidavit that states that if I accidentally burn your car to the axles, you do not hold me responsible.

This undercoating is a royal PITA to work with and remove, and extra special flammable. Ive almost lost control of three fires while doing this. I have set the car on fire about 150 times, but small predictable welding fires. Removing the undercoating on both sides at least 2 inches back helps, but does not completely prevent.

The three times were really scary, one, I was grinding away and set fire to the insulation strands left over after removal on the center hump, by the time I noticed it, my sleeve was also on fire, and im sitting there saying- "my, how hot it is in here".

2nd, residual grime and motor oil underneath the car caught fire near the fuel lines! this was at least 15 inches away from welding, must have been an errant spark.

3rd, BIG fire behind the dash. Don't know how I put it out, but the cause was that I was in the zone, and welded for too long in one place.

I keep a sopping wet selection of towels for smothering purposes, and only weld an inch at a time and check for fires from now on, which has been better. No wonder body shops charge so much to properly repair the rust on these cars. This is way harder to repair and more time consuming than any of the other rusty cars Ive owned.

If they had not done such a good job coating these cars, more people would probably repair them properly, but at the same time, they would probably start rusting out faster, so its a catch 22.

vstech · #18 04-16-2010, 09:27 AM

My shop has water, and THREE BIG fire extinguishers!!!! also have a large CO2 extinguisher... ya NEVER know!

JB3 · #19 04-16-2010, 07:06 PM

closed up most of the huge hole in the floor board behind the seat bracket. Had some issues spanning the size of the gap, as Im using some scrap shelving steel, none of which is wide enough, but I was able to weld in a piece of steel off of an oven for a large part. (a suggestion I read on here, very good idea provided the material is thick enough).

Heres a pic forward of most of the rust removed that shows the extent of the rot- Gradually closing it in, with luck, I should have the pan done tomorrow, and painted with some POR-15 (if it arrives in time). Then I can let that dry and bring the inner side of the rocker channel down to the floor pan, and weld in the seat support.

Received all clutch parts today, so as soon as this rust project is done, on with the tranny work.

piccolovic · #20 04-19-2010, 09:20 AM

Have you tried using Phospho in areas where it hasn't rusted through?

Are you welding new pans to the floor?

Torie

JB3 · #21 04-19-2010, 09:44 AM

Im "making" new pans out of some scrap shelving steel I have in the garage. Its a patchwork quilt of little pieces since the shelving is no wider than 3 inches. Not very pretty (meaning no carefully shaping to original, or bondo afterwords) cause this is a beater car, but its very strong, and the shelving steel is a little thicker than the original body.

I cut out everywhere where the rust was even slightly deeper than surface. Whats this phospho stuff? is it rust converter? I was grinding everything down and planning to coat it with POR15.
In places that are enclosed that I have to weld on, im using that rustoleum heavily rusted metal primer, which seems to be incredibly tolerant to welding through, even though not by design.

The floor pan is closed in now, and I am welding back in the inner parts of the rocker and seat support-
a few pics of the process so far, should hopefully have all welding today or tomorrow, painted, insulated, seat back in, and ready to move onto the transmission!

JB3 · #22 04-19-2010, 08:37 PM

ok, all patch panels are in, (all 30 plus). The rust repair needs to be painted, and the seat mounting tab welded in, then I can look forward to a similar extensive repair on the opposite side.

Heres a pic showing the extent of the damage and repair needed. All the reddish paint is also over floor patch panels. This car was very rotten.

JB3 · #23 04-20-2010, 06:07 PM

Ok, finished up seat mount welding last night. I used modified chevy venture seat mount tabs, which share almost an identical bolt with the same head and thread pitch size. Some finagling had to take place for that, but its done. PORed the floor super early this morning, and now its on to the tranny! Some rust repair finish work needs to take place underneath as far as painting and sealing, but that can be done during the tranny struggle.

Put the car up on stands, and here are the way earlier promised daytime shots of this rusty old sedan!

Also a shot of the POR ing

JB3 · #24 04-24-2010, 09:05 PM

made lots of progress with the car today.

First, yet more rust.

I received a set of beautiful CA fenders from another member on the forum, and discovered that the radiator lower mount area is totally rusted out and will need to be fixed before I can put the driver side fender on. that will have to happen tomorrow. The radiator is basically hanging just from the upper clips.

Pulled the auto tranny out, and mounted the custom 5-speed with a new clutch and machined flywheel. Measured and packaged up the drive shaft to be sent out and lengthened on monday, and tomorrow will modify the mount and linkage and get the tranny securely supported.

Cut out insulation and insulated the floor pans on the driver side with spray adhesive, and reinstalled all the interior that I ripped out. (The car needs an intensive cleaning from all the grinding)

The fire that I caused under the dash has torched some wiring that I cut out, and I have to pull down what it was connected to and see what happened. When I moved the car the other day after the fire, my alternator light would stay on. Has to be related somehow. Ill have to get into it when I replace the pedals.

I also noticed that the car does not have a viscous clutch for the fan, its just a straight bolt up, and that there is some hackage around the vacuum line from the pump to the booster. Its jammed up against the block instead of the usual more professional routing.
The history is that the engine in this car is actually a replacement out of a 4-speed 240, so they rigged it for the automatic. There is a vacuum line that goes from the large line to the booster, runs down to the ALA, and splits to go to the tranny. Can i just put a straight line here instead of a split?

There is also a random vacuum line on top of the valve cover which goes to nowhere. I will have to figure out how the routing is supposed to be originally on a 4 speed. Anyone have any pics on theirs?

a few pics, some more rust on the radiator mount, the 240 auto tranny and custom manual together, the manual mounted up-

JB3 · #25 04-25-2010, 06:31 AM

Rain! for the next three days!

I will have to restrict myself to working on the shifter mount, and maybe getting the pedals in if I remove the driver seat and lie inside the car that way.

On the plus side the car is getting its first wash!

JB3 · #26 04-25-2010, 11:55 PM

Constant rain today kind of cramped my list of things to accomplish, but I did get the pedals mounted, (annoying, as I had to remove them from my wagon which I just installed them in last month), the 201 shifter adapted, the trans cross member modified, and took measurements on the linkage for modification, which will have to be lengthened and installed later.

As soon as the drive shaft comes back from the shaft shop, I should be good to go on the drive train for custom parts.

Heres a few pics of my new fenders, driver side soon to be installed after the radiator support rust work-

piccolovic · #27 04-26-2010, 01:19 PM

PHospho is a rust converter that you can use as a primer . . . paint it on, until the red stops bleeding through, then cover with paint. Can get it at Marine Shops.

JB3 · #28 05-03-2010, 06:07 PM

Installed new oil cooler lines, and fitted the driver side fender. My total random guess on the nature of the inner fender was actually about a half an inch too far out, so the fender will have to be shaved down to fit. Looks nice though.
The rest of the custom mods for transmission shop should be done this week. Im just waiting on shipped stuff.

Moved around to look into the rust problem on the passenger side, and there are some very bad repairs over here. The rust does not look as bad, but there will be a lot of work pulling out some old patch panels that are just glued in over the rusty floor.

The passenger seat will also have to be cut out like the driver seat.

a few more pics-
new fender, and the passenger footwell/jackpoint rust area. I think I will probably cut out the seat, and cut out most of the passenger rust on this side, but Id like to start driving this thing at some point, so I will slow down the full tear down pace. Unfortunately, like a lot of us, I start picking at rust holes until I have a huge pile of crispy debris under the car. I can't leave it alone.

vstech · #29 05-03-2010, 11:18 PM

I ought to post pics of the extensive rust in the 240 parts car I just picked up... could not even jack the car up on the passanger's side... anywhere... jackpoints are bondoed over and from the frame to the doorjam it's total rust party. nothing solid at all.

JB3 · #30 05-04-2010, 01:09 AM

and I bet the doors still close like an icebox right? I can't believe how well these things retain their structure even rusted way out.

I was able to open and close the doors on the driver side no problem even after removing about 60% of the supporting body.
For comparison, I repaired some similar rust in my old lebaron (with the long doors), and when I opened the door, it pulled the body out and would not close properly.