Mercedes 280 SEL back from paint

Its been a while since I have posted an update to the site. Life has been quite busy lately with current plans taking shape (more on that later – but it does involve more garage space in the future! ) leaving little time for working on cars, and updates to this site.

A few weeks back I picked up the 72 Mercedes 280 SEL from the paint shop. They did a wonderful job of cleaning up the engine bay. They removed all the surface rust with spot sand blasting and a wire wheels. Once prepped, they sprayed everything with epoxy primer. Undercoating was sprayed in the wheel wells to match the original factory finish and finally silver paint was sprayed to match.

Although the exterior panels have not been painted yet – I picked up the car and will start assembling the motor and front end back into the car. Once this is done the body panels will be hung on the car and sprayed in-place for their final color coat. This method will prevent any possibility of panels getting scuffed or scratched while laying around the shop during the reassembly of the car.

Mercedes 280 SEL at the body shop

Today I stopped by the body shop to check on the progress of the Mercedes 280 SEL. They have gotten around to stripping the engine bay with a sandblaster and painting the stripped hood and fender with epoxy primer.

They expect to have the engine bay sprayed this coming week along with the hood and fenders. I will likely drop off the Pond Porsche when I pickup this car so the can start on the body work for that car.

MGA in the middle of winter

Today i set out to help a friend of mine collect an MGA that he purchased over the holidays. The car was about a 4hr drive away, and since Christmas was just around the corner, the seller wasn’t available until after the holidays. Unfortunately the day we decided to go we received a large snow storm overnight before we left!

After stopping for gas on the way (and spotting a very odd Beetle / pickup truck conversion at the service station) we made our way to pickup the MGA.

We arrived to find the MGA was as-described as better, so we paid the seller and loaded the car onto the trailer.

We decided to duct-tape the front and tonneau cover down in case we ran into another snow storm on the return trip home:

Although we saw many accidents on the roads during our trip, we made it home safely and dropped the car into my friends garage where we will start refreshing it put it back on the road as a driver hopefully by the springtime.

Pond Porsche Teardown

While waiting for the Mercedes to come back from the body shop – i dug into the pond Porsche. I started tearing it down to prepare it for repairs it will need.

I also dropped the motor and transmission out of the car to freshen them up:

After removing the roofliner I noticed the roof structure has a few kinks in it – which will need to be replaced with straight panels form the shell i picked up. Also i found some previous evidence of an earlier engine fire since the rear parcel shelf is quite rusty and the undercoating looks burnt off. The floors and rockers are rusted (typical porsche of this age), but the dash, doors, door frames, and front trunk area are relatively rust free.

Porsche Swap Meet

This weekend I went to a Porsche swap meet held jointly by Restoration Design and Whale Tail Porsche Parts. I was in search of some pieces I need to fix the Pond-Porsche I picked up from Bring a Trailer, and sell some other unneeded pieces I had laying around.

There were a handful of people selling parts and I was able to find a few who had some of the items I needed for my cars. I was also able to see first hand the quality of the reproduction panels made by restoration design – they are definitely top-notch. I will be visiting them soon to pickup some needed pieces for my restorations.

Mercedes stripped panels

Yesterday I went to TechnoStrip to pickup the hood and fender I had dropped off from the Mercedes Benz 280 SEL to have dipped. The panels looked fantastic – perfectly clean and best of all NO RUST! The strippers had some interesting pieces waiting for pickup such as the back section of a car which appears to be British – Austin or Lloyd perhaps? My Mercedes hood can be seen in the bin next to the car shell.

Luckily it was a clear and dry day, so I was able to transport the panels in the back of my pickup. I immediately took them to the body shop to have them sprayed in a self-etching primer. Since I arrived while the workers were on lunch break I wasn’t able to stay around to snap photos of the painted panels, but I will return later for some progress pics.

Mercedes 280SEL to paint

Today I dropped off the Mercedes 280 SEL to the body shop for paint work. The plan is to clean up the engine bay and paint the exterior panels that were damaged by engine fire. The car appears to be in some good company next to a 2nd gen camaro body and a 2nd gen corvette (non split window) that are also currently undergoing body and paint work.

The owner of the paint shop recommended sandblasting the hood and fender to remove the rust and burnt undercoating, however i was skeptical of blasting such a large panel (the hood) for fear that it may warp. I made a call to TechnoStrip to inquire about having the hood and fender dipped in a chemical to removal all the rust. Their prices were more expensive than sandblasting, but were reasonable considering there was no worry about a wrapped hood. I dropped the panels off on my way home from the body shop and will pick them up early next week. Upon pickup i will take them immediately to the paint shop where they will spray them in a sealer/primer.

Mercedes tear-down

Over the past week I’ve been prepping the Mercedes 280 SEL to send to the paint shop. I’ve striped off all the items on the firewall and under-hood and everything in the engine bay (except for the steering) in preparation for the work. The car will get cleaned up in the engine bay and transmission tunnel due to some surface rust from the paint being removed from the engine fire. The hood will likely need to be sandblasted or dipped due to surface rust on the underside from the fire. The fenders will get cleaned up and repainted, blending paint back into the rest of the car as it was painted by the previous owner a fews years prior and the paint is in very good condition.

Mercedes Parts

This past weekend I stopped by to have a look at a potential parts car for my Mercedes Benz 280 SEL. The body was rough, and trim was pitted, but the drive-line and wiring were intact and appeared to be in descent condition. This car had the exact same options as the car i’m restoring (4.5L V8 engine, floor shift automatic transmission, sunroof, Long wheelbase and its the exact same year 1972). The car also has the optional Bundt aluminum wheels which are in descent condition.

The price was quite reasonable, as it was not running and the body was beyond what most people would bother fixing. So after cleaning off the pine needles and moss – we loaded it onto the trailer and brought it home and parked it beside the good 72 Mercedes where it will be stripped for parts.

Fleetwood Country Cruise

Last weekend we attended the Fleetwood Country Cruise. This was our first time attending this event, which is known as one of Canada’s largest classic car events. We drove down in the 71 Datsun 240z and had an absolute blast!

With lots of fantastic cars on display ranging from muscle cars, hot rods, movie cars, George Barris customs, the worlds highest milage car (a 66 Volvo P1800 with over 2.7 million miles!), and even classic big-rigs, there was something for everyone at this show. Rides were available in Amphicars, which i decided to try since i’ve never experienced driving on land and water in the same vehicle before! There were lots of attractions from a Silver “Vegas-Style” Elvis to Square Dancing tractors!

The Host of the event, Steve Plunkett, also had his collection of Cadillac’s on display in his elegant “Auto Salon” display hall. This yearly event is absolutely a must-attend show for any car-enthusiast – I will surely be back next year!

Wine tour with the Datsun

This past weekend I went on a wine tour of Niagara on the Lake with the Ontario Z-Car club. My girlfriend and I participated with my 71 Datsun 240z, and I believe we were the youngest participants driving the oldest car! There were a couple of other early 240Z’s – including the Dark grey one which is still owned and driven by the original owner! The event was put on by the Z-car club but this tour was open to all cars so there were a few non-Z cars in attendance.

We met up at Tim Horton’s for morning coffee and took the scenic back roads to Niagara on the Lake. The drive was fantastic – despite losing one car that was pulled over by the police and part of the group missing a turn and getting quite off track. We all still managed to make the first stop on time.

We stopped at the Ice-House winery for some ice-wine slushies (which were refreshing on this hot day) and ice-wine samples in shot glasses! Then we stopped in town for lunch, and finally ended at Konzelmann estate winery where we had a fantastic tour of the facility and learned the where the term “firkin” comes from (the very large wooden wine barrel).

We split off from the group as they were headed out for dinner as we had other plans for the evening. We stopped in at several more wineries on the way home. It was a fun day with a great group of people.

69 GTV SPICA diagnostics

I have been corresponding with John Stewart on the alfa BB forums regarding my rough running 69 Alfa GTV. He suspects it maybe a problem with my thermostatic actuator (TA). This part expands as the motor warms up and puts pressure on a on an input of the SPICA fuel injection pump to lean out the mixture when the engine gets upto temperature. He has sent me several tech documents for diagnosis and specs of the SPICA system.

I plan to go over the SPICA setup and verify the components on the GTV shortly in hopes of sorting out the rough running problems.

John has been kind enough to send me various technical docs for the Alfa and SPICA setup. I have placed these documents on the site under Technical Documents.

Valve adjustment on the 69 GTV

This week i did a valve adjustment on the 69 GTV. I had noticed previously that the valve lash was a little tight on all cylinders, and the car would run rough when it would get upto operating temperature.

I took each of the cams out of the engine to access the cups and valve shims. I measured the thickness of each valve shim and adjusted so they were all within spec. I then reassembled the motor and verified the timing.

Once the engine was warm i noticed great consistent compression numbers in each cylinder of 180-185psi, however i still had the sputter and rough running once the engine was up to full operating temperature. This leads me to believe there is a problem with something in the fuel injection system.

Engine out of the Mercedes

I’ve been quite busy lately, but i’ve finally been able to finish pulling the motor out of the Mercedes. It was quite a chore to get it out, as the steering box and idler get in the way of dropping the motor and sub frame as a unit. But with removing some accessories and some wiggling the motor came out.

I separated the motor from the sub frame so i can work on rebuilding it. I put the sub frame back in the car and hooked up the steering so i can send out the chassis for cleanup and paint work while i’m working on the motor.

GTV not running right

I’ve been struggling with the 69 GTV i picked up trying to get it running well. It runs great when cold, but once driven down the road for a few mins it starts sputtering and missing and continues to do so until the motor is cooled off, then it runs fine again.

I’ve started by checking the plugs, wires, distributor cap and rotor, ignition coil, fuel injectors, fuel injection lines, etc without any good results. Today i tried doing a compression test and noticed that when the motor is hot it yields lower compression results then when cold (this is backwards from what it should be).

This led me to start checking the valves. It appears the clearances are too tight, and are allowing the valves to stay open and bleed off some compression when the motor gets hot. Due to the design of the Alfa dual overhead cam motor, there is no way to ‘adjust’ the valves. Valves are adjusted by changing out valve shims found under the cam followers. I have pulled the cams out of the engine and am in the process of measuring each valve’s clearance and will order up the new shims shortly.

Removing the engine

This weekend i started removing the engine from the Mercedes. I started by removing the drive-shaft, radatior, A/C, hoses and steering components. The plan is to drop the motor and subframe out of the car so the engine bay can be cleaned up and the motor can be reconditioned with the parts i picked up from the scrap yard.

Porsche Parts!

Last week i signed up for alerts from my local classified ads and got an email this week about a 67 SWB porsche shell with title just down the street from me. I called the seller and made an appointment to go see it. Turns out it was actually a VERY early 68 build that was titled as a 67. It looked like it had 85% of what is needed to fix the pond porsche. The previous owner started to prep it for restoration and cut out a bunch of rusty panels, so it doesn’t look great, but everything that is still on the car is very solid. A deal was made and we loaded it onto the trailer.

Type-R recovered

This morning we set out to retrieve the abandoned Integra Type-R. After running out of fuel last week, I decided to play it safe and stopped off for a full tank on the way there! After heading north for a while we arrived and found the car was as described. Low mileage type-R with only 22,722 kms on it (about 14k miles)! The interior was taken out and it had a pre-fab’d rollbar installed with and a fire suppression system. After looking over the car there was one serious problem we found – The car was locked and the seller had no clue what he had done with the keys.

A few ideas were tossed around, but after a call to the closest Acura dealer 30 minutes away we found they had a blank key in-stock and would cut us a new one. That hour detour got us into the car, but it was parked with the e-brake engaged so it would not move. We jacked up the car and pulled off the brake pads – discovering that the rear pads had fused to the rotors from sitting so long. Once we had the car rolling we loaded it onto the trailer, and since the car is immobilized from the factory we needed to go back to the Acura dealer to get the key programmed.

The Acura dealership was extremely helpful and the staff were amazed to see one of these cars in this condition (They were a rare low production numbers car and most of the local ones have either been used up or stolen). All of the techs at the dealer came over and had a good look over the car. We joked about getting a free wash with our key programming service, and since we made friends with the techs they gladly let us use they pressure washer! The car cleaned up quite nicely – but will still need some polishing to take out some imperfections in the paint.

Since we were in Barrie – we had to stop at the only Tim Hortons we know that has Boston Cream Timbits! Seriously – i don’t know why all locations don’t have these little bites of deliciousness! Afterwards we trailered the car home and parked it in the new owners garage. It will receive a complete fluid change, gas tank drain and brake flush. Once the car is fired up – the plan is to revert the interior back to original and get the brakes and running gear road worthy again.

Resurrected Type R

I’m heading out this morning to retrieve an Integra Type-R for a friend of mine who heard a rumor about an unmolested original low mileage Type-R that was purchased new, auto-crossed a few times and then parked where it has been sitting for over 10 years! He placed a few calls and tracked down the owner and has made an offer to purchase – so we’re heading out to go extract the car from its resting place and begin working on getting it up and running again.

I got featured on Bring a Trailer

I sent an email to Bring a Trailer with the story of the Porsche pickup and other GTV i had recently acquired and a link to my website. I got featured as a success story on their website. I truely enjoy reading all the comments from readers and have received lots of email from similar minded people and have made lots of fantastic connections as a result!