Momentum on the Mercedes project...

It's only been a couple of weeks and change since my last update, so I must be doing something right. I got the metalwork on the front passenger fender done:

I haven't done the filler work on the fender yet (I'll get to it soon), but I thought it was time to clean the car up, turn it around, and start on the driver's side:

When I got the floor coating up, the driver's side did look a little crusty at first:

But, some cleanup showed that the floor was mostly solid and the rocker was almost 100% intact. This should be easy to repair:

Tonight, I started in on cutting and patching in the rear:

That's where I left off tonight. I'll try to finish this patch (and the rest of the rear driver's side floor board) tomorrow.

Back to the Mercedes... finally

Sorry for the long delay between updates. Shortly after my last blog post, I had some time off work, which gave me about a week and a half to work on (and finish) the Volvo. It's been on the road for a few weeks now, and my wife is happy with it. I still need to chase down a few small nagging items, but the car is in daily service and we both enjoy driving it. Here's the short list of what I did to the car:

• replaced the timing belt and timing belt idlers
• replaced the water pump
• replaced serpentine belt and idlers
• replaced all cooling system hoses
• replaced spark plugs, wires, cap, and rotor
• replaced oil and filter
• replaced coolant
• replaced transmission fluid
• replaced engine air filter
• replaced cabin air filter
• replaced rear brake calipers, pads, rotors, and all parking brake hardware
• replaced front brake hoses and flushed fluid
• replaced front struts and hardware
• replaced front control arms
• replaced steering rack boots
• replaced tie rods and tie rod ends
• replaced rear shock absorbers

After all that, the car more or less lives up to my hopes and expectations. Once we'd had it on the road for a week or so, I put up an ad to sell my wife's old Subaru Legacy. I really was hoping for more than a year and a half out of that car. I sold it at a big loss, but the car had problems. I might not have sold it at all, but a few weeks back, we had an unexpected Sunday morning ice storm which caused a lot of accidents locally. One driver (unfortunately) wrecked her E21 BMW. She walked away unhurt, but had to go out and buy a running car on a budget that same day, which brought her to the Legacy, which was still quite driveable, though it probably wouldn't pass inspection. I told the buyer, her father, and her boyfriend the unvarnished truth about the car, they made an offer, and that afternoon I had my driveway parking back.

After that, I was finally able to turn my attention back to the Mercedes. Now that winter is creeping in, I decided it would be a good time to start work in the (relatively) warm basement, rebuilding the seats. I'll be working on these until they're done, which is when I'll brave the cold and get back to metalwork.

As of now, I'm disassembling the driver's seat. I intend to replace the old horsehair padding with memory foam, stitch up the rips in the vinyl, repair the broken seat springs, and re-lube the seat track assembly.

Away from the Mercedes again, to the Swedish meatball...

Last week, I had an all-too-brief chance to finally get some work done on the 1983 Mercedes. I actually hadn't laid hands on it in nearly six months. It's not that I haven't been busy. After I installed the used engine in 2012, I wasn't able to stop the unexpected leaking. So, this spring I made the decision to replace the Vanagon's head gaskets. As I've never done the job before, it took quite a while to get that done. But, I've been happy with the results.

After that, I had summer to contend with, which included a business trip and a vacation far from home. When I got back, I picked up the 1979 Mercedes parts car, which I spent six weeks or so working on and taking apart. When I was done with that, I had to deal with the unexpected steering rack failure on my wife's daily driver, which led me to decide, ultimately, to replace the car, which is what brings me to where I am now.

The obvious choice would have been another Subaru, but that's not really an option anymore, as far as I'm concerned. My relationship with the Subarus started with my 1994 Legacy L. I bought that car with 204,000 miles on it and drove it (with basic maintenance and a few repairs) for four years and nearly 90,000 miles until I sold it in favor of my (far less reliable) 1990 Volkswagen Jetta diesel (big mistake). Since then, my wife and I have had many Subarus, several of which have been amazingly reliable. However, and this is only anecdotal gut instinct, I think that Subaru may have made some sort of production change in the EJ22 engine. My 1994 Subaru was insanely reliable, and never burned or leaked a drop of oil. Similar story with my wife's 1993 Legacy L and her 1993 EJ18 Impreza.

However, as the first generation cars became scarce, we moved on to the second generation Legacies. My 1995 EJ22 Legacy L burned oil and eventually all but lost compression in cylinder 2. Although I compression tested my replacment 1995 Legacy L Outback (EJ22 again) at time of purchase, cylinder 2 started showing some symptoms this summer. Lately, it's been behaving itself. So, even though the engine and transmission in my wife's 1995 Legacy are healthy, I don't want to take a chance on another unknown Subaru that will be almost guaranteed to have serious rust issues.

So, I did some research and narrowed the list of potential replacement cars to older Toyota Camries (just seeing them on the road around here suggests to me that they don't have as serious rust issues as the Subarus), which are known to be reliable, and on the recommendation of a friend and former Volvo mechanic, old Volvo 850's or S70/V70's. As we like station wagons for their utility, combined with the fact that at this age, there's little if any price penalty for a station wagon, I opted to limit my search to 850 and V70 wagons.

I even considered the Volvos way back in January when I was shopping for a replacement car for my old 1995 Legacy. But, I couldn't find a good one back then. I've been looking for a few weeks, and finally bought THIS:

(it even came with snow tires)

It needs a boatload of maintenance and a few repairs, but looks like a solid base for a daily driver that I should have on the road in a few weeks. THEN, I'll be back to working on the 240D, unless there's another unexpected interruption.

The daily driver search and Mercedes project update

As is to be expected, it's been a busy month for me, in terms of my automotive life. I've been going back and forth on whether I should fix the Subaru (this would require, at bare minimum, a used engine), or replace it with something else.

Logically, the easiest thing to do would be to find a better EJ22 Subaru. I kept this one around so long because they're generally very easy to work on and because I know them in and out. But, this second one, which I've had for almost two years now, has been trouble since day 1. Here's the list of stuff I REMEMBER replacing since buying it two years and 45,000 miles ago:

• muffler
• front CV axles
• radio
• rear portion of the steel brake lines
• rear brake rubber lines
• tires
• spark plugs
• wires
• alternator belt
• alternator (several times, due to defective rebuilt units)
• rear brake pads and rotors
• timing belt
• water pump
• driver's side cylinder head and head gasket
• valve cover gaskets
• intake manifold gaskets
• ignition coil

...and that's just what I can remember off the top of my head. I'm sure the list is longer - MUCH longer.

So, I'm not really keen on trying to fix the car again. Seeing as how even damaged Subarus tend to have surprisingly high retail values around here, I'm leaning towards selling it and getting something different, especially as my cylinder 2 misfire returned yesterday.

I've looked at a Toyota Camry. I liked it, but found the seller was a dealer posing as a private seller on Craigslist. I walked away on principle. My search has shown that most local Toyotas (and Hondas) on Craigslist follow this pattern. So, there's not much for me to choose from in the way of cars genuinely for sale by private owner.

I looked at a 1999 VW Jetta, but it wouldn't even start. Last, but certainly not least, I've been looking at Volvo 850s and V70s. The ones I've found in my price range so far have been a bit lacking in terms of condition. I may go back for a second look at one of them. 

Basically, my second choice after a Subaru is a FWD car with a reputation for reliability. I know the Jetta doesn't quite have THAT, but at least I know VWs. Bottom line, the search has been occupying my time, and keeping me away from the Mercedes.

But, I did get a lot done this past weekend. I finally started in on welding and closed up the rivet holes left by the previous owner:

I did most of my work outside, to minimize the risk of fire and because of some fumes from the welding.

Hopefully, if I'm not too occupied with the car search, I can get back to the Mercedes this weekend and continue with repairing the passenger side bodywork. Here's some video from this weekend:

The 240D - removing old patch panels

Work continues on the project... though not much of it. I've had two weekends now where I barely got to touch the car. I did get out to the garage last Saturday for a little under an hour to finish pulling up the floor insulation from the passenger side.

I also finally broke out my angle grinder and zipped through some of the rivets holding on the previous owner's patch panels:

I had an idea how big the hole was from the size of the patch panel, but now I can see garage floor:

I had to call it a night at that point and deal with the sudden failure of the fuel pump in my wife's car. This also meant I had to chauffeur her on Sunday, leaving the diesel untouched until this weekend. But, I couldn't get to it right away. Saturday morning I had to deal with a blown water heater (got the plumber out here first thing in the morning and had a new one in before lunch). While that was going on, I finally installed the new fuel pump in my wife's car. She'd rented a car to get through the week.

After dealing with the fuel pump, I called it an (early) day and got back to work on Sunday. But... I didn't get to the Mercedes right away. First, I had to put my Legacy up on ramps to try and fix a coolant leak (seems like it was nothing more than a too-loose hose clamp). Then, I made a few adjustments to try and solve a cold stalling issue on the Vanagon. I think I was successful.

Then, finally... I got to work on the Mercedes for a while. I continued with removing the old patch panels, and finally got them off the passenger side of the car.

With the panels removed, I found an oily, tarlike substance. My next task is to see whether or not I can clean it up. At this point, I'm guessing that my repairs will be a combination of welding and riveting.

The old repairs were physically solid, but the previous owner had done nothing to remove or treat the rust. It was all there under the patchwork. I removed the old patches to correct this. Once I have this cleaned up, I'm going to start repairs to this side of the car.

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.

Work continues on the Mercedes

...and the project continues. I actually finished cleaning under the car last weekend, but didn't have time to post an update. It's clean enough now for me to see where the car needs repairs and where it's solid:

This past weekend, I cleaned out the trunk:

I scrubbed it out with degreaser, a brush, and a hose. I even cleaned out the rain channel by the trunk seal:

...and then, I finally got inside the car to start peeling back the floor insulation:

So far, I've only touched the passenger side. The rear coating came off in a few minutes with the help of a heat gun. The front is a much stickier coating, is about 1/4" thick and is spongy and porous, despite what looks like a high tar content:

In the end, I found the above rust-through spot (not too bad, and repairable, as well as this one on the transmission tunnel:

I still need to remove the rest of the floor coating. I'll need more time out there with my heat gun and scraper. Incidentally, neither of these rust-through spots were visible from under the car. The factory floor coatings don't 100% prevent rust after 30 years, but BOY do these coatings HIDE rust.


Also, I recently acquired some more parts. Here's some Jeep doors, stored with some BMW E46 panels. I helped someone I know repair some superficial crash damage to two of his cars. He gave me the scrap panels. I plan to cut them up for the steel I need to patch up the Mercedes.

I also found another Craigslister - this time in town - with Mercedes parts. These came off a 240D that was stripped down to run in a 4 cylinder enduro race. Some of the parts show a lot of wear, and I didn't actually NEED any of it, but it was good to pick up some spares for the future. Some of this stuff was filthy. Here's a pair of armrests, before and AFTER I cleaned them:

A piece of carpet for the center console - once again before, and AFTER a very HEAVY wash and scrubbing:

The flash exaggerates the amount of staining. Bottom line, it is clean now.

I forgot to snap pictures, but I also got fog lights, tail lights, side mirrors, and various other interior pieces. None of them are the correct color (these pieces are the more rare red interior) for my car, but in addition to the parts that were officially for sale, the seller let me pick through his scrap pile for other items I deemed worthy of saving.