Team-BHP - '83 Mercedes 240D - My W123 Restoration Diary

Quote:

Originally Posted by Screwdriva (Post 4009817)

Excellent decisions. The epoxy paint is the best protection for corrosion. I use Miracle paint, a US equivalent.

Amazing results on the carpets. What did you use to clean them?

I used this process.

Took as many of the carpet pieces out of the car as I could...washing in situ is not very good when one needs to deep clean.
Got myself a bucket of hot water and very liberally drenched the carpet pieces with hot water.
I raided my mom's store for the strongest detergent I could find. I laid my hand on some dish detergent. I scrubbed a lot...elbow grease...making sure the carpets stayed soaked all the time.
I then used my trusted wet & dry vacuum to such out all the detergent out of the carpet.
I then again drenched the carpet in hot water and then sucked it out with the vacuum.
Repeat if necessary.

I had got myself fabric dye...nothing too fancy and as close to the original colour as I could find...and prepared myself dye solution in boiling water making sure I note the amount of water and dye used so that the colour stays consistent.
I sprayed this hot dye solution liberally on the carpets.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeroen (Post 4009861)

Careful with that. Too tight and the steering box can lock up!
These steering boxes are allowed a 2cm play measured at the rim of the steering wheel.

I had my steering box overhauled. Not cheap, but the only way to get rid of the play properly.

Jeroen

I have retained about an inch of play in the steering because I have heard stories of locked up boxes. This seems to be fine for now and the steering box is also holding fluids very well...not a drop of leak anywhere on it.

I thought I would need a refurbished box but I have decided not to fix what is not broke.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tazmaan (Post 4010618)

+1 I had a lot of play on my W123 and tried a lot of things. At one point the steering became very hard and had to revert back to the initial setting. As a last ditch effort I replaced the whole unit with another one from a W123 that was being taken apart in exchange of my existing unit. That solved all my problems for mere INR 3000/-

After several visits to Chor Bazar, I have started feeling like a Vulture who keeps visiting cars that are taken apart! lol:

Lucky you. If I were in Mumbai we both could spend weekends together scouring the chor bazaar agree:

I still might need a good dash you know...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeroen (Post 4010821)

Actually, it's a good plan to swap for another unit. Although just about all of them have some level of play. So you never know and it's difficult to check if the unit is not mounted.

Very jealous on the price. You can't get a decent second hand steering box under several hundreds of Euro's. You can still get new one ms from Mercedes too. About Euro 3000! That's about as much as I paid for the whole car!

There are various specialist companies that do these sort of steering box overhauls in Europe. Depending on what needs doing you end up probably between Euro 350-700. But then it as as good as new.

According to the Mercedes specification you need to replace the main bolts and nuts every time you take the steering box of the frame. When properly torqued before you can't use them again. And you really want to make sure these bolts are properly fitted and properly torqued!

Thank again Jeroen. I too have noticed the refurbished for a bit lesser than that. I wonder there must be some one somewhere in this large country who would also be doing this job. Just need to hunt a bit more maybe.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BowMan (Post 4012905)

Nope. The factory manual specs say 25 MM or about 1 Inch is well within specs. Considering there are other components that can also contribute to the steering sloppiness tightening any further is putting unnecessary stress on the gears and hastening the box's doom. I can tighten it further but will not do so, at least not before I have sorted out all other possible points where there is play.

Attachment 1527327

You're quite right. It,s 2.5 cm. So technically an inch is 4mm too much! But I dont think anybody would notice.
The one thing that makes a big difference on how the steering feels, apart from the play, is to ensure the steering dampner is working properly.

In my experience they either work properly or not all. Pretty digital. Even with some play on the box a proper functioning dampner ensures the car maintains directional stabillity a bit better.

Jeroen

Quote:

Originally Posted by vinay kamath (Post 4013404)

Jeroen, its only 0.4 mm too much , not significant :-)

As I said I don't think anybody would notice. Not even sure how you would measure this so precisely, but if you could it would still be a MOT failure in most European countries and it would be illegal to be used on the public road.

Again I don't think it is a big issue perse but I would find it too much for comfort, irrespective of legalities. The dampener can make a difference but it can't undo the play. So especially on wide open roads, driving at speed, with crosswind and or big heavy trucks having a lot of play on the steering isn't my thing.

The problem with the second hand steering boxes is finding one that is better than your original one. All of these cars are getting on a bit and most will have clocked hundreds of thousands of kilometres and that shows up in wear and tear. Even on a Mercedes.

But restoring a car is always a very personal affair where you typically balance your preferences with your available budget and availability of parts! There is no right or wrong just individual preferences and practicalities to content with.

One of the reasons I overhauled my box was to keep everything as original as possible. Nobody will be able to tell, because there is no record of which box came with what car. But I still enjoy the thought and that is all that matters.

Jeroen

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeroen (Post 4014132)

But restoring a car is always a very personal affair where you typically balance your preferences with your available budget and availability of parts! There is no right or wrong just individual preferences and practicalities to content with.

I could not agree more with this. While buying a new car is a standardized and somewhat sterile experience, in many of the cases even minor details like when to serve coffee, when to click a delivery picture are documented and scripted, restoring a car and that too yourself is a much more richer experience.

I have enjoyed each and every step in this journey and what I have accomplished last week is I visited the nearest coir board showroom to buy coir matting for my car matting. I have installed the carpet using heat retardant contact adhesive and have had coir mats had made and they fit nicely.

But the interesting thing I plan is to tackle next are the hub caps. I know most of you will agree that there are few manufacturers that do hub caps as handsomely as Mercedes used to do on their cars. When I got the car painted it was my instruction to have the hubs stripped and masked and then repainted. But sadly this was never done, and this is something always on my mind.

Over the past few days I have all paint using brake fluid and have got them buffed (they are SS so plating was not needed).

Me and my dad have now been spending the last 2 days masking the hubs (not an easy task, with all those curves and fine details). The initial idea was to then take it to the painter to get it sprayed. But now there is a change in plans and I will shoot paint myself using this.

Lets see how things turn out. I have never shot auto paint or primer from this before but have done my own windows with PU. And I am not sure if primer will etch on SS.

Fingers crossed :)

'83 Mercedes 240D - My W123 Restoration Diary-img_3693.jpg

'83 Mercedes 240D - My W123 Restoration Diary-ferm.jpg

Okay gents, I hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday today. I am for sure.

I have just finished shooting some primer off my Ferm home spray system and I am more than satisfied with the results. Here is how the first coat of primer looks like.

'83 Mercedes 240D - My W123 Restoration Diary-img_3694.jpg

'83 Mercedes 240D - My W123 Restoration Diary-img_3695.jpg

The primer has not dried yet so I can not tell for sure if it will etch on the SS. But from what it looks like it will.

Love the way primer smoothens out small imperfections in the metal surface. Perhaps I could have directly applied paint, and most probably that is how Mercedes did these because I could not find a layer of primer when I stripped the paint. But I think this way it is better.

Next would be another layer of primer followed by two coats of paint and two of clear.

I hope you enjoy and will keep all posted.

Okay back to my car.

The repaint of my hub caps took a little longer than I had thought because the first batch of paint that I had ordered was not a perfect match and it turned out to be much yellower.

The lesson learnt here for me is always take the car along and get the paint matched with what is there on it. And if it is metallic or pearl finish then have it sprayed as well on a test panel to see if the patterns matches. I was confident that manufacturer paint codes will be enough and it was a mistake.

Another point I observed is the first time I mixed paint I used prescribed ratios for thinner/reducer and hardener. But the paint flow was not to my liking and I got some orange peel. Perhaps this was also complicated by my having reduced flow at the gun a tiny bit.

This time I decided I will do things differently and I used much more thinner/reducer and lesser hardener. I also maxed the flow at my gun and held the gun nearer to the surface.

I will let pictures speak for the results. But I think this should not let anyone say that you can not get good finish with these airless DIY systems.

'83 Mercedes 240D - My W123 Restoration Diary-13957565_1418805428146456_1421816738_n.jpg

'83 Mercedes 240D - My W123 Restoration Diary-13933353_1418805464813119_402203577_n.jpg

Now the most difficult part is to wait for the paint to dry and I can begin peeling off the masking.

Friends, today I am going to do something special for you all and the rest of W123 fans out there.

I had yanked the car out of the workshop in May and since then I have pretty much dismantled 80% of it....the doors, trim, interior...almost everything apart from the engine.

I have since then been putting it together the way I want it to be put together and the way a Mercedes is supposed to be done. Some days it's been back breaking hard work for me and all my neighbors are amused at me pouring rivers of sweat every weekend in the sweltering summer.

However I have enjoyed each and every moment of my journey, not that the journey is fully over, but I feel I have reached the stage where I can share the fruits of my toil with you.

I have sprayed my wheel caps yesterday and today morning my dad peeled off the masking (he insisted no one but he will do this task). Few days back I had bought speakers and radio. The radio was particularly hard to find because I wanted only the Blaupunkt San Francisco 320 and it seems to be nowhere in stock. I installed the radio and speakers, did the wiring. I installed back the rear seat and the wheel caps and then I just stood back and looked at her. I decided I will give her a wash and after that I will do take some of her pictures, something I have been waiting for a long long time.

Some days the weather is just perfect and I will sign off now and let the pictures do the talking :)