Imagine yourself driving your Pagoda in the Franche-Comte, Alsace, Lorraine region of France, in a weekend with Pagoda SL Group friends, good food, wine, sightseeing and great early autumn weather.
The International Club for Mercedes-Benz 230 SL, 250 SL and 280 SL Roadsters based on the W113 platform.
This site and this Group were established as a source of information relating to the Mercedes W113 cars and to help maintain, restore, exhibit, and promote the ownership and admiration of these cars among the international community of W113 enthusiasts.
For details about our Group, see the menu items at the left. We have our charter, membership information, and lots of fun sections here.
The buttons above this text bring you to our Forum, for a wealth of information and a great community of car owners. Join us today for your free Forum membership. If you become a Full Member for a nominal fee you help to pay for the upkeep of this site and receive additional benefits.
We have a Technical Manual with lots of useful information to keep our cars running and to maintain or restore, or just learn more, about your vehicle. Our Technical Manual is powered by a Wiki, so Full Members are able to edit and contribute to the content. There is some premium content available, only for Full Members.
Pagoda University Blacklick 2009
Pagoda University Blacklick 2009, hosted by Joe and Mary Alexander, was a huge success. Some 80 attendees enjoyed lectures and show and tell sessions on saturday. Useful items to do with our cars and hobby provided for by a number of vendors and individuals were raffled off. Thanks to (in no particular order) Bob Geco, Michael Salemi, Ray Hays, Bud's Benz, Haartz, (Juan) Tomas Santos and Tosh. We ended the day with a nice dinner in a restaurant nearby.
On sunday over 20 cars - and their crews - were present when Professor Joe Alexander did a number of live car tune-ups, diagnosing problems, and fixing smaller ones, and generally performing his magic. Some of the cars saw longstanding, little problems disappear with a few tweaks of the master.
If you missed this great event, then you can still find all the presentations here: Pagoda University Blacklick.
Cars in attendance for sunday photoshoot (photo by Al Lieffring)
230, 250 or 280 SL? Which is best
Many magazines and other sources say that the Mercedes-Benz 280SL is the most valuable car of the W113 range of Mercedes cars. They cite improved horsepower, a more reliable crankshaft with more bearings, and up-to-date equipment such as an automatic gearbox or disc-brakes all around for this.
But is this really true? The experts and members of our forums beg to differ. They consider the lighter, manual 230SL to be more of a sports car. They also prefer some of the detailed fixtures on the car, such as the additional chrome, the mirror posts, the door fittings.
However, even they cannot agree. Some prefer the most undervalued of the range, the 250SL. Already adorned with some of the improvements of the 280SL, but without losing the charm of the 230SL, and certainly without the emissions control features of the 280SL, it may be the best compromise.
Hey, don't take our word for it. Check your thoughts in this thread dicussing the differences in detail.
Technical Manual
Many visitors head straight for the forums... hey that's where it's all happening, right?
Well, not so right. We have a community effort going on amongst Full Members of this forum to produce the definitive source of all knowledge Pagoda. Need to know about minute differences between a 230, 250 and 280 SL? Need to know how to do something that the Mercedes-Benz manual doesn't give you enough detail about? Has the Haynes manual let you down?
Check out our Technical Manual first. Chances are, you'll find it in there. Some bits aren't finished yet, and sometimes it may just be wrong. That's because it's a community effort. It is getting better all the time, and most of it (except for some precious parts that alone will make your Full Membership of this group worthwhile) is freely accessible.
And if it isn't there.. why don't you ask about it at the forums and write up in the Technical Manual what you find out? Because that is what this community of real car lovers is all about: sharing knowledge and helping each other out.
Once the Technical Manual is in a further advanced state, we shall be distributing paper copies for use in your garage or workshop (well, you wouldn't want to get oil in your keyboard, now?).
Truely an amzing preservation! I think it is the only W113 I know of that has the original exhaust still on it. Notice that every connection is welded from the factory and all the asbestos heat insulators sheets are at each rubber ring connection. The transmiission case is the correct green olive color. There is some great documentation of the paint inspection marks, the chassis is painted the same as the body color with the rockers a semi-gloss black. Notice the location and type of the four clamps on the rear axle tubes.
Also I see that the car is correcty supported on the four arm lift. Two on the trailing arm/chassis connection and two on the heavy frame members next to the transmission bell housing.
Another item nicely documented: some of the many chassis water drains are clearly visible in these photos (see green arrows)
With the side cover removed, rotate the pump and watch to make sure all six of the pistons are moving up and down. You will also want to make sure that the rack moves freely back and forth and returns to its starting point.
Concerning parts, you will most likely have to go to a Bosch Distributor who has books and part numbers on these seals. One of the injection pump re-builders may also help you out.
Could be Eric. I have read the bellows is under a partial vacuum and I believe the vacuum and spring contend with each other. Remember when my seal gave out the spring expanded the bellows to the limits of the canister which is equivalent to 42,000 ft. I think the bellows would be under a partial vacuum even at sea level.
replacing the cable is a pain but I would not pay to have it done.
The hardest parts are 1. removing the other instrument clusters to get to the speedo cable 2. r/r the cable from the tranny.
I figure an experienced person could do the job in 2 hours or less.
remember you need to remove the screw at the tranny clamp entirely.
as far as the resto, Palo Alto speedo can do a rebuild for less than 200.
if you want to verify if your speedo is good, pull it and then use a drill with a square bit on it to spin the speedo. if it is good the needle will move.
