Builds 1973 Mercedes R107 build

[Gumby]

Moving along slowly.
Vent grills were painted black on the green car and oversprayed red on the 78. The 72 still has the factory rivets in the grills. They are silver on that car so I painted them silver and will rivit them in place as soon as I source some 6mm rivits. Letting the tonneau cover vinyl rest in the sun. I have a new cover someplace.
A pillar trim is ridiculously fiddly. It's going slow.

 

[Gumby]

Data plate and emissions plate on.
Hood insulation installed.
Weird exhaust tip came in a box with w116 parts. Kinda cool. I'd like to find asecond one.

 

[Gumby]

Got a lot of little stuff put back on. Dash and center console are all in with a lot of HVAC stuff to hook up yet. Right door panel is all on. A pillar trim on. That sucked. Trim under the headlights and under the rear bumper are all painted. Getting pretty close.

 

[Gumby]

Busy weekend on R107s.
The 78 is about done. It's been almost entirely converted to an early model. 72 interior is all in. 73 HVAC conversion is done. 78 HVAC is in the bin as should happen with chrysler parts. Most anything identifiable as late 450 is gone.

I saved enough 73 parts that the 72 can live on, I think. It'll be an unfinished driver if it can be done cheaply. Maybe always with the hardtop

The checklist is short.
I broke a HVAC trim piece that I'm pretty sure is 72 only. It's gonna be tough to draw, but I'm thinking 3d print is gonna be my only hope.
I know I have a new tonneau vinyl. I just can't find it.
The trunk lock decided to not take a key. I found the one to the 73 and the key in the column. I have to swap that in.
Heater valve s*** the bed. Another on the way.
Raptor liner below the trim line and in the wheel wells, then I can put that last bit of trim on.
Headlight brow chrome needs to be installed

 

[Gumby]

Warshed with the top up. Working through the checklist

 

[Gumby]

Glamor shot. Still no Raptor liner or rocker trim.

 

[fjc-man]

Nice work, reducing the late model SL to manual HVAC makes so much sense. If the servo unit wasn’t leaking, it wouldn’t “park” with the ignition off. Which would create a draw that over night would kill the battery. I know I’m preaching to the choir about this, so when were you a Mercedes tech? I don’t see too many comments on your thread. Most probably don’t know anything about any Benz model, leave alone what you are doing here. I can relate, I worked for 30 years with Mercedes Benz.

 

[Gumby]

This is my personal first MB. My mom had an early 80s 300d when I was 16. I've learned a lot. I find them to be over-engineered sometimes, with assembly made overly complicated in the effort to make a single fastener do three things, but I appreciate the elegant design and thought put into every part. Like the Lexus LS, tactile interaction oozes quality and thought. Switch gear, door handles,, everything the user touches has a weight and feel to it.
1st day driving it to work again. 40 miles each way. Hope it's not too much of an adventure.

 

[Flipper1938]

1st day driving it to work again. 40 miles each way. Hope it's not too much of an adventure.

Good luck. Maybe someday I can drive mine for the first time.

 

[Gumby]

New Project Binky!

It's making me think bad, bad thoughts about my center vent clock to be converted to an analog AFR gauge. Maybe not taking two years to do it though.

Been driving the car daily. About 200 miles. 10.5 mpg, about the same as the Tundra towing the trailer with the 450 on it.
Haggerty got the insurance. Best coverage for the best price. They did me right when I crashed the 45. They even sourced the parts. And they're right up the road. I'm not sure i would buy it for $25k, but that's what they say it's worth and I'm good with that.
Drives great. People dig it. Only one roadside repair during Mondays 50 degree morning commute with the top down. Windows up and heat on full blast because I just got the blower switch re-pinned. The fuse melted to plastic slag. The filament never did blow. Chinesium plastic versions of the worst fuse design ever. I have a big box of spares in the car. Unfortunately, I took the ignition feed to the PCM relay from the left over HVAC nonsense that went into the bin. So the heater and engine quit at the same instant. Swapped in a new fuse and flipped the hoodie hood up.
Back to the widebase cupholder. The Autozone one that fit so well with the 73 seats will not fit with 72 seats as the tilt knob is on the inside. Writing that makes me wonder if the seat backs can be swapped so the knobs and rear access levers can both be on the outside. I miss the awful looking center arm rest from the 78 seats.
Fixed the exhaust leak which made it sound better and run better without a huge air leak north of the wideband. New exhaust tips came in. Gonna have to fab a mount to get them tucked in nice.
Tach is in-op for no reason.


Was 77 this morning. There's a frost warning tonight. Back in the winter beater LS430 tomorrow. It's 4/30 day too.

 

[Gumby]

Exhaust tips, headlight brow and cleaned and sealed top. Decided to throw on the rocker trim and not do Raptor liner, although I have to do something to replace the stone chip guard I ground out where i had to patch the rocker. Thinking about replacing the pinstrip on the beltline.
Bikes are out of storage and Lexuses booted out of the attached garage.
The Benz will move out to the little barn when I make space for the Lincoln to move back into the shop. Vented gas caps and attached garages don't mix.

 

[Gumby]

I thought my mercury Capri tps had died. I didn't like using a part that was old and completely unavailable, even if it fit as a bolt on. I went with a Bosch TPS found on BMWs. Part number 13631726591. Easy to find a pigtail for it too. It uses a 3-wire EV1 connector.

Took no time to draw up and print a 5mm thick adapter plate. The E30 TPS has the same 8mm half moon socket for the throttle shaft. I cut the end of the shaft down as the new TPS sits a lot closer. I printed threads for the TPS bolts. Worked great. If they don't hold up, they make threaded inserts that go into PLA plastic when heated with a soldering iron. I can try that. Turns out when wiring it up I found the sensor wire was broken. The angle it has to sit at makes the EV1 connector impossible to get to without removing the throttle body, so I installed a Deutch connector.

Started a second try at a cut and buff. I wasn't happy with the first try. Too many swirl marks and I was timid with the DA near edges. Blocked it by hand this time. Duke and Ralphie helped.

 

[Gumby]

I'm not sure i can tell the difference. Right half is done.

 

[Gumby]

Today I discovered using guide coat for a color sand. I used it out to 2000g.

 

[NCFJ]

Looking really good !

 

[Gumby]

Big test drive on Thursday. I drove down to meet up with the Hot Rod Power Tour about 160 miles away near Lake Erie. Longest road trip by a big margin so in typical fashion I went to repair a problem with a giant complicates fix. I ordered blank fuel rails to replace the stock D- jetronic pipes and rubber hoses. -6 AN fittings everywhere. Parts showed up at 7 the evening before. At 10 it wasn't going to be fixed in time, so I put the stock set up back on in the morning before I left.
After an hour or so I stopped for gas at a station that had 3 grades of Ethanol and a blend. I chose the regular no blend flavor. I think it still had a lot of Ethanol in it because I blew a fuel line to the regulator another hour down the road. I pulled over in a road side park after smelling fuel and seeing the AFR on the dash go way lean. Turns out if was a great place to watch the Tour while waiting for my friend from IN to show up. He did the whole tour and bought me the pass for the day.
Spent a couple of hours wiping all the compound and polish off of everything and watching the cars.
Buddy showed up and we headed out. Blew two more injector lines in the two hours it took to go the last 30 miles. Fortunately neither when we were stopped baking in the sun in traffic. There was chunks of hose liner on the injectors.
Good news was that it stayed under 200 even while idling for a long time in the heat. Dropped right down to 185 once moving.
Made it to the fairgrounds and had a good time checking out the cars.
After stopping for fresh fuel and a 2 foot length of high pressure fuel hose just in case. the drive home was uneventful and pleasant. I do have a good checklist of things to fix starting with the fuel injector rails.

 

[Gumby]

Fuel injection rails 1.0 isn't gonna work, but i learned a lot. Got some new, better blank fuel rail extrusion and the right drill bit to put all the right profiles in the injector holes. In the meantime I replaced all the rubber hoses under the hood with new manifold side seals. That fixed the AFR readings. Runs pretty flawlessly now.
Brought in the spare m117 motor to build the new fuel rails on a stand.
Swapped out the diff for the LSD from the w116. Same gear ratio.
Changed the steering coupler/rag joint. I choose to pull the shaft out of the column rather than pulling the gear. The column doesn't come out without pulling the dash. I was able to re-clock the column to fix the turn signal cancel too. No more slop or clunking.
Swapped in a new idler arm kit too.
Tons of polishing left, but it runs and drives great.

 

[Gumby]

Started running roughing starting hard. AfR gauges showed way lean. Swapped in the new pump and filter from the red 72. Good to have a parts car.

Cold War Motors sticker.