Pagoda SL Group
W113 Pagoda SL Group => Body, interior, paint, chrome, and cosmetic items => Topic started by: MRB43 on April 21, 2011, 04:17:42
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What should the metal finish on the wheel-covers for my 1970 280SL be?
Are they steel or aluminum?
Should the unpainted finish be a bright chromed or a satin finish?
Thanks!
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The full wheel covers were originally steel, bright chromed apart with a centre that was painted the hard top colour with the MB symbol unpainted. There are now reproduction covers made in stainless steel that are polished but again the centre should be the hard top color.
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At some point Mercedes switched from chrome plated steel to stainless steel. These are somewhat of a "satin" finish, ie. not as polished as the previous chrome plated ones, and again, with centers painted to match the hardtop. I don't recall when the change came, but your car, a 1970, should have the ss covers.
Gus
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On my 68, I have stainless steel. Have no idea if they were originals or not, definately not repros looking at the tabs and dirt on the side.
Rolland
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The SS OEM ones I have are high polished, exceptional quality. Beautiful. Search my posts elsewhere you'll find a photo of the repros and the new ones side by side.
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My 14,000 original mile (June 1970 production) has stainless steel wheel covers. Interestingly a magnet will stick to them. My chromer informs me that this is a different type of SS and takes a higher polish. The modern SS doesn't attract a magnet, may have a slightly yellowed appearance, and doesn't polish as well.
ljg
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Can anyone recommend a good polishing compound for these satin finish, stainless steel wheel covers?
Thanks.
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At some point Mercedes switched from chrome plated steel to stainless steel. These are somewhat of a "satin" finish, ie. not as polished as the previous chrome plated ones, and again, with centers painted to match the hardtop. I don't recall when the change came, but your car, a 1970, should have the ss covers.
Gus
One more data point: My early '70 (August '69) has the chrome wheel covers. I have no reason to believe they are not original.
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I've owned my 68 280sl for six years. It's tobacco brown/cognac. I'm the third US owner. When I bought the car the wheelcovers were polished but unpainted. Was this an option at original purchase or clearly added later. Will the datacard answer that question? Thanks.
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They were painted the hard top colour. The data card will show the paint colour of the car and hard top
There has been a bit of discussion on 'how to' wheel cover painting e.g.:
http://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=3165.0
Do a search on wheelcover painting will reveal all
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Garry - Thanks for your comments. I have reviewed the data card and I know what the original color of the hard top was, and I know that the factory standard was for the wheelcovers to be painted to match. I'm not interested in painting my wheelcovers though. My question was whether unpainted covers were ever a factory item. Thanks again. Don
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It is unlikely that unpainted wheel covers were a "factory" item; that does not say you could not get them like that however.
Replacements came unpainted; if you were spending $7K or more on a car back then, and the thing holding you back was the wheel cover paint, I'm sure the dealer would somehow swap the wheel covers for unpainted ones; therefore at delivery, you would get unpainted ones. Did this ever happen? Who knows--but with nearly 50,000 customers some interesting sales scenarios were bound to exist. If it did it made the original delivery unpainted, but not necessarily factory.
Remember, the engine bay polished up like a show car was something that some people received, though it was not in the standard catalog.
Just as an aside, most people who know much of anything about 1960s era Mercedes know the wheel covers were painted to match the hard top or the body color (which in many cases was the same). Looking at a car today w/o paint on the wheel covers, to me looks, "unfinished", like a work in progress. Just my opinion. If you like the look of unpainted, by no means should you go through the effort of painting them. Keep them or finish them ONLY as you like them, unless you have Concours on your mind. That's a different story.