So here we go, the apocalyptic pile of shit that I dragged out of a dumpster. Bad trans, bad fender, bad paint, bad interior, bad just about everything else.
But, it's not as bad as it looks. It's been sitting around for a few years and it's been withering away. Luckily a nice coat of trans, engine and hydraulic oils cover the bottom preventing this car from rotting out.
1985 Mercedes 300TD Turbodiesel
OM617 w/ 207k on the clock with an absolute cherry of a motor, rust free chassis and suspension components, meticulous service history back to 4900 miles in 1986 to now, and the major interior pieces are all actually in decent shape.
It doesn't look like it now, but we'll see how this car can be transformed in the coming weeks. I'll be spraying it back to original color soon as I need to get the paint guns flowing so I don't royally F up the Pagoda paint job.
Anyway, here she is. Pretty, eh?
Wonderful bondo work done by previous owners.
Urban assault for sure, wish this had a bullbar or something.
Rest of chassis is fairly straight
Nothing wrong with this side of the car, save for some cracking lenses. The goal is to find some cheap euro lights and french them for this car. Should look sharp.
Add windshield to the list.
Rear bondo work....I wonder what that's hiding.
I need to find front and rear bumpers for the ole girl.
Hammer and chisel. This was far easier than I was expecting. Someone just put aluminum tape over the dent and bondo'd over it.....seriously.
I couldn't stand looking at this any longer, so I had to just get it off and check everything out underneath.
Pulled a good fender out of the stash.
Hey hey hey, everything's looking pretty good under there!
No rust!
Cleaning process for chassis coating.
All's well when it looks like new. Technically this is just left an unpainted beige from factory as that's the color of whatever their metal preservation stuff was. I took the extra step and undercoated the entirety of metal to preserve everything underneath.
Checking fender fitment
Lines up nicely!
Turned my attention to the rear. Need to get this dent out as much as I can.
All bondo removed and dent punched out as much as I could without welding studs and using a slide hammer. More progress as it happens. Stuff will be moving as rapidly as possible with this car as I don't want this precious space taken up for long.
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