Builds 1973 Mercedes R107 build (2 Viewers)

[Gumby]

Imma pull this build thread out of my 66 Suicide Slab thread since I'm gonna start ramping it up now that the weather is warm.

If the engine turns out to be no gouda, or something else is going to take more than a couple of weeks to get running, I might switch back to the stinkin lincoln so as not to get too distracted. But, if I can get the R107 driving without too much trouble, it's gonna be me and Lorenzo rollin in the Benzo.

First few posts are from the Lincoln thread.

 

[Gumby]

Then I bought another flagship project. Shopping on the CL. I didn't feel very strongly about a cadillac for the next one, so I started looking at Barn Find for random projects. Mostly to see what might get me exited for the next one. The Mercedes 450 SL did the trick. The prices are right on them, but there are some more desirable years than others and the late 560s with decent FI are spendy. 72/3 are the rarest and most analog but are the most finicky with a terrible P jetronic early analog electric FI. 74-80 are CIS mechanical FI and somewhat reliable, but still not easy to diagnose. Those are also super smogged throttled and have porch bench safety bumpers

Stupid Faceballs. I quit it because its the debil, but my dog lets me use her account for marketplace. Saw a bunch of nice 450s in a decent range, but nothing that I would consider before finishing the Lincoln. I got bored and threw a bunch of filters on a search anywhere in MI.

 

[Gumby]

Not running. Ugly as Hell. Clear across the state. But poorly written ad and stupid cheap. And a 73. The only year badged as a 450 with pre-emissions and pre-safety bumper. I drove out the next evening to jump the queue and bought it. Went back out yesterday and picked it up.

The guy had a couple of people look at it who were clearly smarter than me, but no buyers. I'm sure it would have been long gone if he had listed it as a 450SL, but the badge had fallen off and he couldn't be bothered to look at the title or registration.

The story was that an older member of the sellers congregation had purchased old cars for his kids. The Benz was the only one they didn't want so it sat in his barn until the old guy got dementia. His pastor was selling it for him and knew nothing about cars.

I could see why the kids didn't want it. light green metallic exterior with an poorly done bright green interior and Aspen Green top. 74 was the last year you could order the hard top a different color than the body as well, as far as I can tell.

 

[Gumby]

Floors are shot. Fuel pump has a broken fitting, but runs. Starts on fuel down the throttle body. Great oil pressure. Trans engages. Took a while to get the hard top off and the soft top storage bay open. Soft top has a small hole, but otherwise looks great. Windows came clear with one application of plastic polish. No rust from a leaky hard top or in the soft top well.
Ripped out the carpet and seats. Cleaned out a lot of mung. Powerwashed. Scrubbed and washed. 0000 steel wool on the stainless and chrome. Level 1 tidy at best.
The driver door trim was in the back.

View attachment 3303854

 

[Gumby]

The trunk is locked by a central locking system that is vacuum powered like the Lincoln. It did not appear to unlock. Found the two vacuum lines to the trunk and applied vacuum with a Mighty-vac. I could hear the actuator moving but no change in the button. Just moved like it was locked in lock, power lock and key unlock positions. I watched some videos and went to work with some picks and PB Blaster. Poking and prodding through little drain holes. Figured out what the button needed to do and was able to pop the trunk with a curved pick. The c clip holding the part that pushed the latch with the button was gone so the button couldn't press the latch.

Found the 4th alloy and the missing badge that prolly knocked $1k off the price when the guy selling it for the old man in the nursing home didn't know what model it was.
Found the factory tools, but in a crown royal bag.

I had put a Jetta wheel on it to get it to roll. One of the tires was split all down a sidewall. The Jetta wheel was hediously ugly. I'll find a set of 275/80r14s for the chrome alloys. The painted hubcaps are really cool on the 450s, but I like the alloys and that's what I have.

 

[Gumby]

Detinted the windows too. First car I've ever had that I preferred no tint

Plans are a 5.3l 6l65 swap. The motor is cool, but high miles and the FI system blows monkey nuts. (Edit: maybe stand alone CPU on the P-Jetronic, Maybe 1UZ or 3UZ)

Better seats, prolly black. (Edit: or maybe black and grey Audi seats) Black carpet. I'm torn on the Avacado interior and silver green poly paint. (Edit: less torn now. It's ugly and its not growing on me) I will dye the interior panels. Needs enough metal work that I'll need paint, but I dunno about a color change. Definitely changing the hard top color no matter what the data tag says. I think 73 was the only year with hard tops available in a different color, but that green is terrible.

I'd like to get it running to make it easier to move around. After that it'll prolly go on the hoist for the winter and the Lincoln will go in the body shop side for wiring plumbing and interior over the winter.

 

[Gumby]

Well, damn. Benz fired right up after I fixed the fuel filter. Idled away with good oil pressure. Drove it around. Now what?

Good thing it's almost winter and the Lincoln is already in the heated part of the shop. I'll put new floors in the Benz next spring and reassess. Meanwhile the Continental gets some lovin'.

 

[Gumby]

Figured out what I'm gonna do with the f.i. I'm going to try to keep the Mercedes engine, but replace the d-jetronic with a speeduino. I should prolly just start a new thread for that. (Good idea!) I can't find much on a djet conversion, and nothing on a Benz, but I'm not scared to learn.

Speeduino might be a good way to swap toyota engines as well since there's not much that can be done with a stock PCM.

 

[Gumby]

Worked on the Benzo today. Pulled the fuel tank. Its inside the trunk below the soft top well. The inside isn't bad. The screen was plugged when I got it. I poked a hole through the screen to get it to flow to get it started last fall. Tank had to come out to change it. Pulled the screen and got a new OEM one on the Amazons. Used a tank cleaner and the powerwasher. It's nice and clean inside now.

Pulled the sending unit and took it apart. It's dead.

Wire wheeled the trunk floor. There are two panels that have been replaced before and are very pitted and one has some pinholes. I can make the whole panel better so I'll just do that. I'll hit the whole trunk area with rust converter primer and Raptor liner. If nothing else the trunk is de mouse stanked after pulling everything out and powerwashing.

Previous painter left a note on the trunk lid. It was nice of them, but I'm not keeping the green.

 

[Gumby]

Got the new tires a couple of days ago. 14s and 15s are getting hard to find and expensive used. People in rural MI snap them up for trailers. I did find a set of used 15s for the Lincoln. A bit too small on the sidewall and no white wall, but they are all the same size and hold air. That's important for final body work as you want all the weight on the tires at ride height.

The Benz tires were hard to find. I was in Belle Tire picking up new tires for my old LS430 and asked about the 14s. They had a cheap set for $60 each. They have poor ratings, but they are round and hold air. Mounted them up on the alloys. After cleaning 20 years of mung off of them, i noticed I have 2 alloy colored ones and 2 chrome ones. Good thing you can't see both sides of the car at the same time.

 

[Gumby]

Tank is cleaned, new screen filter. Painted the tank and the cover. Reinstalled it with new vapor lines to the expansion tank. Trying real hard not to get carried away until I know the engine and trans is good.

Started it up and let it warm up and circulate the good fuel and techron. When the t-stat opened I dropped the oil and filter. Put in 9 quarts of diesel oil for that pre-catalytic goodness. Had to try a few places on their websites to find a filter in stock.

Took it for a test drive. What an absolute beast. It's got a low end miss, and a high idle, but it drives great for not doing anything to it. My guess is it has a vacuum leak. Be amazing if it didn't.

The brakes got better and better as I drove it. It shook hard the first time I drove it in the fall. At the end of the drive they were fine. It needs brake lines for sure. They are there and currently holding pressure, but they are crusty.

Shocks are whipped. It's wallowing a bit.

Pretty damn drivable as it is. I'll get plates next week.

 

[Gumby]

This little beast is probably the ugliest and most beautiful car I've owned.

 

[Gumby]

Pretty great news with the 450 today. I found the vacuum leak. It's hard to believe how good it ran with 12" of vacuum. The hose to the fender mounted MAP was split. Runs good now, but still has a sticky throttle. A blip on the pedal drops it right down.

I got brave and pulled the fan cover.

SLs rust bad in two very bad places. The cowl vents and the blower motor and fan housing. The cowl/firewall rusts through into the back of the dash. It's really hard to fix.

I had pulled a cowl cover and found no rust at all. Good sign, but the drains are in the fan housing. The fan housing with the broken cover with an entire tube of blue silicone gooped everywhere. Not a good sign.

Inside the fan housing was a huge mouse nest. Mice tend to rot metal. Not a good sign

Sucked all the nest out. Disinfected and powerwashed. Blew it out all again. I was happy to see the water drained out under the car. No moisture in the car. It would have been very hard to justify putting much effort in this car if the cowl was rotted out. I was just hoping it wasn't going to be too bad. I didn't think it would be this good.

 

[Gumby]

It doesn't look particularly clean, but, trust me, this is very good news. Here's a pic of typical rust in that area.

 

[fjc-man]

You might consider a valve ajustment, the V8 with EFI didn’t have hydraulic lifters. With new valve cover gaskets in hand of course. Aaaand there are four sets of “trigger” points in the bottom of the distributor that have a habit of getting oil fouled causing the solenoid style injectors to be erratic.

 

[Gumby]

Valve cover gaskets arrived last night. I have read about the plastic clips for the cam oilers and wanted to check them. I'll adjust valves then too. Thanks.
Injector points will get service for sure now that I know it works.

Sonic cleaner showed up too. Injectors for sure. Prolly throttle body too. Hopefully nicotine stained Lincoln parts too.

 

[Gumby]

Throttle requires a blip to return so I took the linkage apart that was on top of the manifold. There's a rod down the back on the ds to attach the linkage to the pedal and one down to the trans on the ps. I'll mess with those if this doesn't work

The pivots were pretty tight. I cleaned the bushings and linkage in the sonic cleaner, then ended up blasting the linkage anyway. The cad plating was all corroded.

 

[Gumby]

Took the passenger door card off. Ran the door latch through the cleaner. It's been scratched everytime someone popped the cover off, but it came pretty clean.
I'm going to try and dye the card tomorrow, weather permitting. Before pic to preserve the green goodness.

Reason for taking the door apart is to get the motor to go up and down. Pretty sure the motor is bad right now. Bit more testing tomorrow.

 

[Gumby]

Spent most of the day on the driver seat. Disassembled the r107 seat. It was very broken inside. Modified the sliders to bolt to the stripped 2000 audi A4 seat bottom. No more power anything but tilt. The passenger seat has no power so it should be easier

Problem is the seat is tilted way forward and I needed to look up wiring diagram, so I kept that until the evening. If I can get that to work I'm pretty confident these seats will work well.

 

[Gumby]

Drove the panzerwagon to work Friday. Ran pretty great. That pic made me go ahead and order the black dash cap.

Turned the front rotors. Repacked the wheel bearings. Checked all the steering and suspension. Ordered new rear Sachs shocks

Dropped the trans pan. Someone rebuilt the exhaust once and they put the crossover right in the way. Took forever to do and it prolly leaks worse now.