Today was another day attacking the old Pagoda. Found some interesting and some depressing things over the course of the job. Moral is, the head is coming off to be redone, I'm going to be doing a compression test before I do so to get a baseline on everything.
The front grill needs to be readjusted. The hardware holding it in place is incorrect and is playing a part in its misalignment. That'll be taken care once I spend more time on the car.
The fuel pump has been replaced, which is fantastic as it's a very expensive part to the car. The hoses are incorrect and will be replaced. Any bits where there is surface rust will be taken down to bare metal, prepped, POR 15'd and then undercoated.
Center resonator to rear muffler section. There's a bit of a leak coming from the rear end that will be taken care of with time as well.
There's a bit of overspray from a touch up on license plate light lenses and screws. The over spray will be taken care of and the lenses and screws restored to their original condition.
Chrome has some odd wear on it. Probably from getting washed with a dirty rag or something. I'll try some polish to see if I can restore the finish as the metal is otherwise dent and deep scratch free. The exhaust muffler is missing the nice chrome tips, which will be put on in time.
Back to the engine, can't start work without some oatmeal creme pies.
Vacuum line to the distributor will be renewed when everything goes back together. This line was cobbled together with 2 different pieces rather than the solid one piece it should be.
Removing the hood support and any other random brackets to be cleaned and either painted or powdercoated original color. Taking a look at a couple concours type cars will be a guide for bringing this car back to life. Nuts and bolts are all organized in a small bag like this and organized.
Removed the negative battery cable here as it's most definitely past it's usable life. A new and improved cable will be built and crimped/soldered rather than just crimped.
The other end of the cable. The clamp is fully tight and it sits loose on the battery.
Next step was to remove the surface rusted battery tray. It will be blasted and then powdercoated black.
Area under the battery tray (sorry for the poor quality picture). There's a small dime sized hole from what seems battery acid may have worn through. The metal there will be cut out and a brand new piece will be shaped, welded in and sealed. You won't notice any work was ever done to the area when I'm done - which for the whole car, is the goal.
The worn and torn hood hinge on the driver side (passenger side is in similar condition). This will also be one of the parts that will be blasted and recoated.
The AC compressor is non factory and was installed sometime in the 80s. AC in a convertible... really? While nice to have, it's not original to the car and will be removed. There are some unsightly brackets, hoses, etc that were installed that clutter up the engine bay and look terrible.
Can see here how the AC compressor was digging into the air cleaner housing. Goes to show how non factory parts have trickle effects when installed.
Top left the area that was getting hit by the AC compressor. The whole cir cleaner box had the wrong air filter box in it and every last air cleaner mount was torn and was letting the air cleaner housing to float around on its own.
A couple of the air cleaner tabs are broken off from the housing.
The old painted wire from resistor to coil. I'm going to make a brand new wire for this as this one is tired and in my opinion, far past it's life.
Ground cable from coil to distributor. Somebody already made a new wire, but used a crimp style connector rather than properly soldering something together.
The old original Bosch ignition coil.
aaaaannndddd the depression sets in. Sitting in the timing case is part of one of the chain guides. This engine's not going to be turning over anymore, it would be absolutely catastrophic to the valve train to have this engine skip time at all. I'll save what I can, while I can.
A picture of the non standard SAE hoses used throughout the engine bay. All of which will be replaced with the correct Mercedes hoses or accurate CORRECT reproductions.
Ignition coil resistor
What came out of the crankcase. Looks like oil right? The engine is supposed to have 6.0-6.5 quarts of oil in the crankcase with every oil/filter change. Well, this is every so slightly over that 6.0 quart capacity. Remember that fuel smell I was getting when the valve cover was removed? Well, there is absolutely no oil type viscosity to this fluid. This is strictly fuel. You read that right, this 5 gallon container, is partially filled with fuel that came out of the crankcase. I took a shower under the car when I removed the drain plug.
Coolant draining. It's a solid color and doesn't smell or have any globs of anything floating in it. I'll consider that a win in terms of the cooling system condition.
Continuing on the fluid tour, here's the power steering system. While the fluid dirty, it's not an abnormal color. It's simply ATF, no big deal. The seal on the other hand looks like something that came out of the local Home Depot.
The small ring is what is supposed to seal the power steering reservoir. It's rock hard and absolutely won't seal the reservoir, so I can see why somebody would go out of their way to order a few dollar part and instead replace it with something as ridiculous as this.
A close up of the AC compressor and hugely annoying bracket that drapes itself over the entire front of the engine. Can see the slightly beat up original metal portion of the car. I'm going to try and reshape the area to factory spec. If I'm unsuccessful, a repop piece will be welded in place.
A parting picture of this side of the engine until the next installment of this saga.
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