220s restoration questions

[JeffreyNMemphis]

Harry~

You are my HERO!!

I wish my car could have that much love... Can't wait to see the finished project.

My 220Sb is a 1962. What year is your car?

[harryskater]

Originally Posted by mercmad6.3

For a Kiwi car it has very little rust. I have worked on Finnys here in OZ which were a lot more rotten than that .I am working on a 300SE coupe right now which needed a new roof section welding in.
And the springs do not need to be left stuck on the floor...
The rubber pads on the top determine ride height so measure them and see how thick they are. There are three or four different thicknesses so the ride height can be adjusted .
There should be rubbers on the bottom end of the spring too.
Por 15 is great stuff , my late uncles mercedes SSK was used on the front of the New Zealand catalogue a few years back.
Never ever spray it without a respirator!!!. It will kill you if you get that stuff in the lungs. it's not paint,but liquid urethane and it goes hard in the prescense of water...like you have in your lungs.
Replace all your rubbers in the diff,including the flexi boot, the torque arm bushes, the upright pivot bush and the cross link rubbers. The mount in the boot should be replaced too . These cars ride like a dream when all this stuff is in good nick.

Im quite impressed with the amount /lack of welding to be done too. coming from England originally i have owned a triumph dolomite and a kombi and both were riddled with rust so this is a nice surprise.
I have replacement rubbers waiting to go on the diff including torque arm pivot bushes, arm to body bushes all the cross link bushes but amazingly the other rubbers including the big flexi boot look like they have recently been renewed and are in great order. I also have replacement hub bearings and oil seals and pinion shaft oil seal.
The springs are now off i have replacement rubber top and bottom "shims" to go in, i got these from ********AZ but only had a choice of one thickness, i wasn't aware different thicknesses were available!
The strange diff mounting in the boot.. Where can i get a replacement from? I imagine the whole unit has to be replaced - the rubber is ruined and doesn't look like it would separate from the metal housing. They sell them on Dbdepot but somewhere must sell them more locally?
New Zealand has a POR15 catalogue? nobody seems to stock it here in the south island, looks like i will have to order online. Perhaps somebody in the north has some for sale..

[harryskater]

Originally Posted by JeffreyNMemphis

Harry~

You are my HERO!!

I wish my car could have that much love... Can't wait to see the finished project.

My 220Sb is a 1962. What year is your car?

Hi Jeffrey! Thankyou, haha my SB is a 62 aswell. The donor car is a 63. If the project goes well i might have to give the 63 some love too.
Do you have some snaps of your SB?

[mercmad6.3]

Originally Posted by harryskater

The strange diff mounting in the boot.. Where can i get a replacement from? I imagine the whole unit has to be replaced - the rubber is ruined and doesn't look like it would separate from the metal housing. They sell them on Dbdepot but somewhere must sell them more locally?
New Zealand has a POR15 catalogue? nobody seems to stock it here in the south island, looks like i will have to order online. Perhaps somebody in the north has some for sale..

The mercedes Classic center in California is where I get all my bits ( sorry site sponsor. ) as the freight costs are good and it usally a 3 day delivery to here.
The part number is A 110 350 06 75 .
you should be able to get the POR15 via mail order onlne
PPC - Restoration Specialists

[harryskater]

Originally Posted by mercmad6.3

The mercedes Classic center in California is where I get all my bits ( sorry site sponsor. ) as the freight costs are good and it usally a 3 day delivery to here.
The part number is A 110 350 06 75 .
you should be able to get the POR15 via mail order onlne
PPC - Restoration Specialists

ah cool, just checked their site out. How do you order? Theres some info about an electronic parts catalogue but i have to subscribe? Or do you just email them with your part numbers?

[mercmad6.3]

Email the parts manager direct and he will request your card details andd address . Easy as that.
thomas.hanson@mbusa.com

[harryskater]

Originally Posted by mercmad6.3

Email the parts manager direct and he will request your card details andd address . Easy as that.
thomas.hanson@mbusa.com

Great! Thankyou Mr mercmad!

[suginami]

Originally Posted by mercmad6.3

Email the parts manager direct and he will request your card details andd address . Easy as that.
thomas.hanson@mbusa.com

Tom Hanson is a good guy. I order my parts from him when I need them for my 280SE 4.5, and I'm only a 30 minute drive away from the classic center in Irvine, CA.

Tom seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of these old Mercedes.

[harryskater]

Originally Posted by suginami

Tom Hanson is a good guy. I order my parts from him when I need them for my 280SE 4.5, and I'm only a 30 minute drive away from the classic center in Irvine, CA.

Tom seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of these old Mercedes.

Cool, thats good to know!

The Finny is going in for glass bead blasting this week. Any tips/precautions to be aware of anyone? I trust the guy doing the job not to warp the panels which a few people have told me could happen. And glass bead is a better alternative to sand i believe as it wont react with the steel if it gets trapped in small cavities or hiding places but what are the disadvantages?
Pictures to come

[mercmad6.3]

Only one tip, use your rottiserie to tip the car over and over to make sure all of the dust and stuff falls out and get a good vacuum cleaner and spend as long as possible reaching into the smaller places to find beads .
Sand blasting is a bugger in that the heat does distort the panels and the shot peened surface is damned hard to work with when trying to get straight again.
I prefer soda blasting. The dust left over is pretty benign although some of the stuff has illegal silica in it.

[harryskater]

Originally Posted by mercmad6.3

Only one tip, use your rottiserie to tip the car over and over to make sure all of the dust and stuff falls out and get a good vacuum cleaner and spend as long as possible reaching into the smaller places to find beads .
Sand blasting is a bugger in that the heat does distort the panels and the shot peened surface is damned hard to work with when trying to get straight again.
I prefer soda blasting. The dust left over is pretty benign although some of the stuff has illegal silica in it.

Can Soda blasting have the same effect on the metal work as sand if it gets trapped? My Media blaster guy recommended glass bead because of this i think.
And i think its a bit cheaper too. Hes Quoted me 1600NZD to blast the shell, doors, bonnet and boot lid. Im gonna try and slip a box of bits in there too for the same price hopefully. Does anyone have a comparison with this price? Reasonable? or not?

[mercmad6.3]

The sodablast system uses baking soda at a high volume with a low air pressure. It wont remove rust but it will take paint off and leave the metal shiny without the tell tale pitted look of sandblasting. It doesn't react with steel and you can wash it off with water. it will kill the lawn but the grass seems to come back even stronger after a few weeks.

Because there is no heating of the steel,it will not rust which you get with the more abrasive systems like beads and walnuts. you can actually leave a sodablasted shell for a few days before washing it with phosphoric acid and then etch priming .
The cost is about comparable with here where everything is f king expensive.

[harryskater]

Yeah, it is expensive, but its not a very pleasant job and there's no way I'm sanding the body of a finny by hand so i guess I'm paying somebody to do the job i don't want to. Oh well i hope its worth it. Il get some pictures up next week as its going in on friday.

[harryskater]

Away she goes for glass bead blasting. coming back Tuesday for a lick of primer
Already got the doors, fenders, bonnet and boot back. Very impressed, only one door with some old school lead repair everything else is sound

[mercmad6.3]

Ahh New Zealand, I can just feel it now, icy cold mornings,wet concrete... I almost feel homesick .Almost.
Mercedes were an insanely expensive car in NZ in the post WW2 years and as a result were mostly looked after very carefully so it's no surprise that rust is at a minimum.

in OZ finnys have almost no value so many are pretty rough and cheap to buy.