Busy month in the garage...

I really need to be better about updating this for those of you who so kindly take the time to read it. When we last left off, I'd spent the bulk of the winter working in the basement, rebuilding the seats from the 1979 parts car to use in the 1983 240D. Once that work was done, the weather started to thaw out just BARELY enough to get back to work in the garage.

I'm happy to say that as of this past weekend, I've finished patching up the passenger side floor and rocker panel. I still need to seam seal the repairs and then cover the whole area with truck bedliner. But, otherwise, that portion of the project is done.

Next up after that, I'm going to be repairing the rear passenger wheel arch with a Klokkerholm patch panel and find a way to repair the passenger side hood spring. But, I'm happy to say that I have more momentum on this project than I've had at any time since I bought the car two years ago.

When the passenger side is done, I tear apart, inspect, and repair the driver's side.

front corner of rocker patched

front corner of rocker patched

inside of passenger rocker and floor patched

rear wheel arch patch panel

trunk floor patch panels

the pile o' patch panels

Mercedes 240D - start of body work

I got sidelined with a week and a half of travel for Thanksgiving, but I was able to spend a little time with the Mercedes this weekend. That's AFTER swapping snow tires on to the daily drivers for a snow storm that didn't happen and an unplanned wheel bearing replacement.

Now, I'm just barely starting to get into body work. Right now, I'm still taking up the old floor coating. This stuff can hide a lot of rust. I want to make this car as solid as possible. This is how I left off before Thanksgiving:

I'd already removed the much thinner coating from the passenger's side rear floor and had gotten partially through the much more tenacious front floor coating. On Sunday, I finally got the rest of it up:

Underneath it, you can see the rivets from the previous owner's repairs. I also confirmed that none of the old rusty metal had been ground off. So I definitely need to remove the old repair plates and grind off the rust s I can seal off the metal. I also found that the the seam connecting the rocker to the floor rusted out (I've seen that happen before), so I need to fix that too.

They key to HOW I do the repairs is whether or not I can clean all the oily crud out of the rockers. If I can, then I'll likely weld. If not, then once I grind and seal everything off, I'll be back to riveted repairs.