Still working on the Mercedes...

It's been close to a month since my last update, but I've been busy. Sadly, I'm still working on the passenger side. I thought I'd be done by now. But, it's not due to lack of effort on my part. I've been working on the car in the evenings after work in addition to on the weekends. I just keep finding little details that need attention.

To recap and get you up to speed:

• the floor and rocker repairs are done and coated
• the rear wheel well (inner and outer) are now repaired
• a hole in the trunk lid, previously covered by a rubber plug (presumably from an old antenna installation) is now welded shut
• the trunk floor is repaired
• the hood spring perch is now rebuilt and the new hood spring is installed
• the wheels I'm going to use on this car are now painted
• since I was in a convenient place to do so, the passenger side door jambs are now painted

At this point, I'm working on repairing the front passenger fender. It has some pretty serious rust issues and I sold my good fender from the parts car. Right now, I'm patching up the rust holes and will soon re-mount the fender to the car. Once that's done, I can finally turn my attention to the driver's side of the car.

Some photos from the past month:

...and that's where I am. I'm trying to do at least a little work every day, which has been helping a lot to speed things along.

Not foolin' around with this car anymore...

No, I'm not getting rid of the Mercedes. On the contrary, I'm finally getting some serious momentum on this project. It was January, 2013 when I started tearing into the passenger side floor. I'd say I did the bulk of the passenger side floor and rocker repairs just in this past month. I now have all the patches in, welded, and seam sealed.

On top of that, I was able to cut out the bad portions of the rear passenger wheel housing lip and weld in patches I cut from the larger Klokkerholm patch panel. It still needs a little bit of filler to even it out, but it's solid and actually looks pretty decent for what it is. I still need to weld it closed inside the trunk.

But, the passenger side of the car is nearly done. I still need to make a patch inside the wheel well and rebuild the passenger side hood spring perch. But, the floor and rocker are solid again (though they still need finishing - paint and truck bedliner).

Now that spring is here, I'm hoping to be able to work on the car most evenings when I get home from the office, which should help speed the project along. My goal is to be driving it this summer.

rusted wheel well lip and formed repair panel

rusted area cut from rear of wheel well lip

checking fit of the repair patch

weld-through primer

patch piece, clamped in place for butt welding

patch tack welded in place

welds ground down

front of wheel well lip - spray paint is from previous owner

crud and dirt caught inside the panel - needed to clean it out

patch welded in place

repaired wheel well lip - still needs a small bit of filler to smooth it out

patches inside the car, seam sealed - still needs final coating

Starting to patch up the Mercedes' floor

Well, with the Outback all taken care of and the garage cleaned out, it's finally time for me to get to patching the Mercedes floor. First, I had to wake the car up. I charged the battery last week (strictly as a precautionary measure), so I hooked it up, and the car started on the first bump of the key.

I backed it out into the sunlight for the first time in 2013. The name of the game this weekend was patchwork, so I started by making straighter cuts in the floor:

Once I had the holes cut, I made some templates and started cutting patches out of my donor panels. First victim, a dented door from a Jeep Cherokee - given to me by a co-worker when I helped him bolt on some straighter doors.

Once I had the first patch cut, I fitted it (roughly) with a few pop rivets...

...and then started welding.

I worked through the weekend, and have the passenger side of the floor almost 2/3 of the way patched up now.

Hopefully, by the end of next weekend, I'll have the floor patched up, and will then move on to make the rest of the repairs to the rocker panel and wheel wells on the passenger side of the car. It's nice to see those holes finally starting to close up.