Author Topic: 1964 230SL restoration in UK (Read 238046 times)

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #125 on:** March 12, 2015, 07:59:17 »

My car was originally maroon and the only part that definitely had been painted body colour was the transmission mount, and that only on the outside, and clearly not whilst on the car. These are pictures of the underbody before the undercoating was stripped, it shows a creamy beige colour, with some body colour overspray and some blackout, although even after steam cleaning it was pretty dirty.

Inside the car is a different matter, the bulk of it is a mid grey like the back of the wheels with maroon overspray everywhere, and some cream cover over. Underneath seems more of a creamy colour, and that seems to be what I have seen on various photos and on the motoring investments website. I'd like to get a definitive answer on what it actually is though.

I'll have to do some more research, it can take as long to find out how it should look as to do the job sometimes!

Jonny B · « **Reply #126 on:** March 12, 2015, 16:13:10 »

The transmission mount plate should be body color, it should also have the body number stamped, as on the trailing edge of the hood (and the top cover case). The underside of the car is usually the cream/gray (not exactly sure on that). It would not have come from the factory fully painted in body color. There would have been some overspray from the body color, I think that is what you can see on the Motoring Investment cars. The wheel wells should be body color, as should the engine bay.

Go to the search function, use "underside" as the search criteria and limit the search to topic only, and you should get three hits, the information is spelled out in a bit more detail than I have listed above, but in the same vein.

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #127 on:** March 15, 2015, 19:20:35 »

As part of the preparations for the sandblasting I wanted to remove the centre section of floorpan so we can blast the inside of the seat mount crossmember, I also wanted to remove the rear light panel, or at least most of it so the inner panel can get blasted. It looked a bit rusty so I didn't want to have the whole car blasted then have to clean that section by hand once I had removed the rear panel.

It all came relatively easily although I had had a bucket full of drilling spot welds out by the end of it. Again I was impressed by the build quality of the car with the rubber between the outer and inner panel, and around the exhaust aperture.

This is the first time I have really used our new rotisserie in anger, I had only really used it for cleaning and painting under a corvette upto now but I have been using it fairly consistently on the mercedes, it is such a brilliant piece of kit and I would recommend anyone doing this kind of work to buy or build something like this.

Ours was pretty expensive as it is designed to work safely on Corvettes so is a pretty heavy duty piece of kit to keep the fiberglass body held rigid but I think something could be made to support a monocoque steel body for a sensible amount of money, I tell you though, the thing is worth its weight in gold. I was spinning that thing around like I don't know what. A far cry from the mattress and lump of timber I used to support the Sunbeam Alpine I had when I was in my teens!

I have uploaded the latest video to Youtube here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t9ytqfj3v_k

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #128 on:** August 08, 2015, 04:22:57 »

Been a while since I last posted about this. I have been busy putting my wifes Karmann Ghia together and have also been doing bits and pieces to the Mustang. I am in the process of converting from auto to 5 speed manual, so they have been taking pretty much all of my spare time, I've been doing a lot of cycling too so have been busy.

That being said, there has been a little bit of Pagoding when the time and mood allows. I had the diff inspected by our local specialists and was given a clean bill of health, so new gaskets and seals were fitted. I have resprayed the rear end but have yet to reassemble. I have to sort all the fasteners out for everything and find someone to yellow cad them over here.

I also have to reapply the various yellow and green paint markers that were over it. Looks nice though and was a bit of a boost to see something looking a bit fresher.

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #129 on:** August 08, 2015, 04:36:32 »

I've also had all the suspension components blasted that I could, obviously nothing that the sandblasting could hurt. Everything was in pretty nice condition overall. I will replace the front coils, it looked to me like they had sagged a bit, I had them blasted and painted them all the same. I've ordered new front discs also as it looked like too much meat would have to come off them as they were pretty badly pitted.

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #130 on:** August 08, 2015, 04:46:14 »

I had already had a couple of the wheels blasted when I had sent some other bits away and primed them with an etch primer. I did a bit more research on this though and had a change of plan, I had them blasted again with the rest of the wheels and have painted everything with an epoxy primer/sealer as it is better if it is going to be left in primer for a while.

Before I had the wheels blasted I sent the best one away to get the grey colour on the back of it matched so that I can topcoat the rim and the back in the same colour, then paint and overspray the front of the wheels body colour, which at the moment is looking like 387H blue, but that could change...

There's a picture too of the suspension bits getting their first black primer, this is a very good matt black primer we use on Corvette frames and components. Everything has had 2 coats of this and then 3 of satin black cellulose with a light flat and de-nib before the last coat. It is all looking very nice.

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #131 on:** August 08, 2015, 05:02:03 »

There are bigger developments with the body though, I finally managed to pin my sandblasters to a day and they came out and gently blasted the underside and inside of the shell for me. As one would expect it is slightly worse than I had hoped, but as I've said before, I'm in it now.....

Once we had blown and hoovered out as much of the sand as possible, and there was surprisingly little in all the nooks and crannies, I gave everything another couple of coats of primer.

Just a few interesting points for you guys though when complaining about body repair costs. Not including the actual disassembly I have spent probably £200 on paint stripper and materials, around £300 on primer, activator, and thinners, £500 on sandblasting, my young assistant and I spent probably 30-40 hours scraping underseal off, and it took around 5 hours to apply 2 coats of primer inside the body and underneath. And that's just primer without any real prep work. Our normal labour rate is £48 per hour, so there's over £3000 worth of work and materials there. No wonder repaints are so expensive!

That's a sobering thought, that's the last time I add anything up.

The overall costs have far exceeded what getting the body dipped would have been and has certainly been a lot harder work but I still think this was the right way to go for the car.

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #132 on:** August 08, 2015, 05:04:58 »

But I'm doing it for the love of it....

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #133 on:** August 08, 2015, 05:07:06 »

And a few in primer, it's nice to see almost everything in one colour at last, now the real hard work begins though.

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #134 on:** August 08, 2015, 05:14:42 »

A few more.

I have also had the motor stripped now and all is pretty much as expected, the bores are generally good, and we are going first oversize on pistons so 82.5mm, they are the early four ring type. I have ordered a new set of Mahle pistons and rings from Shaun at Mercedes Poole, which was a bit eye watering, I'm used to bargain basement Chevy pistons, I could have got a set of JP pistons for around half the cost but think that the difference in quality will be well worth it.

The crank is in good shape with only some scoring on the front main bearing so that will get reground and my guy will fit new main and rod bearings, the cam is very lightly worn, the jury is still out on whether to get a new cam or get that one re-profiled. I have ordered new rocker arms from MB, along with new timing chain and guides.

So far everything I have got for the car has been genuine Mercedes with the exception of some sheet metal parts which were not available, a set of bumpers, and an exhaust. I have gone for a stainless steel Timevalve system. I wrestled with myself on this one as I have never had real good experiences with stainless steel exhausts and much prefer mild steel, but the MB system is a weld together system, and is untreated, had it been a clamp together aluminized system I would have gone that route. Mike at Timevalve has been very helpful and is painting the system flat black for me so it looks as close to stock as possible. It is also cheaper which is a bonus, I just couldn't see myself spending close on a thousand pounds for an exhaust only to have to replace it not many years after.

Ronni summed it up when I was deliberating on this...'get over it' she said 'I bet if that stainless steel set was available in 1966 when the first one had to be replaced it would still be on there now' She's a wise woman my wife...

It's all pretty exciting stuff.

Larry & Norma · « **Reply #135 on:** August 08, 2015, 08:09:25 »

Great stuff

johnk · « **Reply #136 on:** August 13, 2015, 17:05:03 »

Scott,

Thank you! This is all extremely helpful as I am a few weeks away from starting the same do-it-yourself project and I am not as experienced as you. You mentioned that dipping would have been cheaper to remove the undercoating. Is it your experience that a good media-blasting will not remove the undercoat? I assumed that could be removed when the rest of the chasis is media blasted.

Also I have not purchased a rotisserie yet. Any recommendations what to look for? I am not in the business so it will only be used for my 280, a mustang Mach 1 of my brothers and whatever other cars I acquire over the next twenty years (if this resto does not kill me!)

Thanks!
John

Bonnyboy · « **Reply #137 on:** August 13, 2015, 21:25:51 »

I cannot stress how important it is to take undercoating off an unknown car. Know what you have before you go deep. I didn't go full restoration but rather I just fixed what is needed and left the patina where I could.

The undercoating on my car mostly came off with an electric scraper / multi tool and hand scrapers of varying thickness and flexibility. The electric tool left a fairly clean surface where I could wipe the metal with mineral spirits to get to clean metal. For me it was more to get to clean metal so I could cut out and replace metal. I was amazed at how much of the undercoat was either wet or came off with a layer of rust attached. Scary at the time.

Then I took my brass wire wheel on an angle grinder (use full face mask and leather jacket / neck) to get the stubborn areas.

For me - the undercoating just laughed at my inadequate sandblaster. You need an industrial model.

I had 1 coat of original undercoat, 1 layer of a ziebart type product and several areas with multiple coatings from a can as previous owners tried to hide the rust.

There was even a nicely shaped piece of a Kellogs Corn Flakes box that was glued to the underside of the floor (where it covered a patch of bondo) and coated with undercoating to look like a metal panel. It wenk clunk when you hit it with a screwdriver but didn't hold a magnet.

johnk · « **Reply #138 on:** August 14, 2015, 02:27:02 »

thanks. I have been all over my car and the body and underside look very solid, but I am thinking I don't want to take a chance in what I can't see under the undercoat. I will just make sure guarantees he can remove the undercoat before he starts. I don't plan on doing that part myself.

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #139 on:** August 14, 2015, 06:01:32 »

We took my undercoating off with a hot air gun and a scraper, helps to have a 17 year old college kid who wants to earn a few quid too.

I tried a couple of different methods, blow torch, stripper, scraper, and the hot air gun seemed to work best. No sandblaster will really do much against undercoating of any kind, it just bounces off, I guess if your man had a very big industrial model and just stayed in one area hard then it may do it but it would also deform the panel to hell. My guy had a very large model mounted on a 14 tonne truck with a hose I could have crawled in, and he said his wouldn't do much against undercoating.

We stripped all the undercoating we could get to by hand and then paint stripped the insides of the fenders, ie the back of any exterior panel as I didn't want the sandblaster to go near those, I only had him do the inside /outside of the floor pan, chassis rails, engine bay and boot, but not the back of any exterior panels. I also had him do the windshield frame and then turn the pressure right down and do a couple of spots outside the car where there were a few surface rust spots.

I had also already stripped the paint off the dash but I hadn't treated it with kurust as there were a couple of areas that I couldn't get with stripper so I had him very gently go over the dash too.

It didn't take long to blow the sand out, there will be a bit leach out as body work is done so by the end of it 99% of it will be gone. It is the method I used on the Mustang and it worked well for me on that.

I thought hard about dipping but read a mixture of reports, some good, some bad. I was concerned about them denting the shell moving it around their yard and during the dipping process, and concerned about some acid being left in box sections, may be unfounded but it worried me. It was also a pain for me to transport the shell there and back. I was quoted around £12-1400 to dip the shell and aluminium panels, I guess if it was going to need to be dipped again after the repairs then e-coated maybe it would have been 3 times that, in which case my way has been a bit cheaper.

I think if I were doing it again, I would still do it this way, the dipping is less labour intensive for me personally but I think this is a bit kinder to the car.

I would definitely remove the undercoating again too, I was reluctant at the start and it didn't uncover much more but it did uncover a bit so in my mind it was worthwhile. I know at the end of the day this car will be absolutely as good as I can make it.

The rotisserie came from autotwirler.us Ours is the pro model because we will use it a lot, and have been. It has become so useful to us as a tool that If I had a bit more room to store and use them, and could justify the expense, I would probably get another. My advice would be get or build one, it makes the job so much more pleasant when you aren't laying on your back. The autotwirler stuff is very well made and they are easy to deal with, it may not seem cheap on the face of it but when you figure the cost of the steel etc and then how long it would take to make to the same standards the price is ok.

johnk · « **Reply #140 on:** August 17, 2015, 02:40:16 »

Thanks very much Scott. I need to rethink how much I am going to do now. My son is now 26 so I can't get him to do all the grunt work that I used too!

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #141 on:** August 18, 2015, 05:18:31 »

So I did a little bit of Pagoding at the weekend, I got all my fuel injection pieces ready to go to the USA for refurbishment, I removed the cold start valve and guess the previous owner had a problem with it as the jets had been blocked with some sort of plastic cap, I can't figure why this would be on there unless it was dribbling a bit.

I'm sending that with the injection pump, I'm sending the injectors too but suspect I will be fitting new ones.

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #142 on:** August 18, 2015, 05:27:35 »

I've been getting my final batch of chrome plating ready to go as well, and stripped the door handles and the fiendish dash vents, the worst part was getting the solid chrome vent out of the dash piece, took a while to figure out there was a c clip holding it all together, I'm just not used to this German efficiency.

I also started looking at tail light housings, I figured I would send the housings along with the chrome to be zinc plated. I can't figure out how to remove the clear plastic lens from them , anyone done this without damaging them? The only way I can think is to carefully trim the edge until they come out and then glue them back in after.

I was going to grind off the rivets holding the bulb holders in and then rivet them back in after, anyone got any other tips for that?

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #143 on:** August 18, 2015, 05:30:46 »

When I was looking for bits I cam across some of my old interior trim. The instrument binnacle is a bit damaged so I could do with finding another one of those, the A poillar trims are ok and will recover, but what is correct for the top of the windshield frame? Mine just had foam stuck to it and some vinyl glued to it, is that right?

66andBlue · « **Reply #144 on:** August 18, 2015, 06:08:14 »

Quote from: Scottcorvette on August 18, 2015, 05:27:35

I've been getting my final batch of chrome plating ready to go as well, and stripped the door handles and the fiendish dash vents, the worst part was getting the solid chrome vent out of the dash piece, took a while to figure out there was a c clip holding it all together, I'm just not used to this German efficiency.
I was going to grind off the rivets holding the bulb holders in and then rivet them back in after, anyone got any other tips for that?

Scott,
when you get these louvre plates back from the chrome shop the diameter of the hinge pins on both ends (marked with red arrows in your photo) will have increased after plating and you'll have to file each of them down by hand to get the tilting mechanism to work again. That is no fun as I found out!
Thus after discussion with the chromer for the second batch he returned the stripped and copper plated plates back to me and I covered the pins with the insulation tubing that I had pulled off from a wire with the same diameter. He still could knot a thin wire around the pin in front of the tubing next to the plate to provide current and hang the parts in the chrome plating tank.
Fortunately, the insulation withstood the tank conditions and it worked - no diameter change of the pins!

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #145 on:** August 18, 2015, 06:22:54 »

And that's worth the joining fee on it's own!

I'll do that today, thanks for that one!

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #146 on:** August 19, 2015, 05:38:42 »

I stripped the seats last night so I could get the frames sandblasted while I am having some other bits done, and send the last few bits of chrome plate away.

The horse hair pads are in fair condition, not sure if they will go again with some extra padding on them or if I should go with this sort of thing:

http://www.cabrio.de/khm/en/padding-panels-backseat/panels-and-seat-paddings/mercedes/113sl/Seat-back-cushion-113-rubberized-hairfoam-compound-detail

The seat frames are in good condition though with only one spring broken, one of the adjusting knobs is cracked which is a shame. I'm also missing the chrome vents out the back of the seats.

JamesL · « **Reply #147 on:** August 19, 2015, 06:31:28 »

Scott

Have a search on here for "swimming pool noodles" - a very effective way of making your seat feel less squishy, soft and like it is about to collapse.

stickandrudderman · « **Reply #148 on:** August 19, 2015, 15:42:10 »

The rear light lens can be chromed with the lens in place; the process doesn't affect the plastic.
Vacuum deposition is the required process for the reflectors.
Why are you sending stuff to the states when it can be done here?

Scottcorvette · « **Reply #149 on:** August 20, 2015, 05:22:32 »

It's the housing I want to get zinc plated. Can I do that with the plastic lens in place?

Who could I get to redo the injector pump etc over here? I tried calling Fred Pentecost as mentioned by Naj earlier in this thread but got no reply, I'll give him another try.

Can you recommend anyone else? I would like it cosmetically restored as well as mechanically overhauled and tested.

You might also be able to recommend somewhere to get my nuts, bolts , fuel lines etc yellow cad plated?

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Author Topic: 1964 230SL restoration in UK (Read 238046 times)